


Domestic Relations

by Shangalangalang



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Domestic, Drabbles, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 20:13:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 37,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/944158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shangalangalang/pseuds/Shangalangalang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was only supposed to be for a little while, just until Eren got his degree in psychology and Rivaille paid back his debts to Grisha. But what was only supposed to be for a while turned into an unlikely roommate romance between a college psychology major and a sleep-deprived doctor. It all goes downhill from there. Mostly fluff, drabbly, rated M for that smut chapter that we will never talk about ever again.</p><p>ON HIATUS</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

"Shitty brat, wake the fuck up and explain yourself this instant."

With that, Eren's face had a very familiar encounter once more with a certain man's foot, indicating that the man was agitated and was not about to give Eren the sleep he needed so badly.

Eren groaned, used to the pain by now. Whether that was a good or bad thing, he didn't know nor did he care. He refused to budge from his very comfortable place in bed, prompting Rivaille to kick him in the face repeatedly. Eren was probably lucky Rivaille wasn't wearing any shoes, because even though it wasn't enough to break a facial feature, Rivaille's kicks were truly one of a kind, to say in the least.

"What?" Eren moaned, slowly becoming irritated himself. From what he could tell, no light was streaming in from the windows, which meant it was either extremely cloudy or it wasn't past 6 yet. He assumed the latter.

"Get the fuck out of bed, you little shit," Rivaille ordered with a chillingly dark tone in his voice. When he saw that that approach didn't work either, he resigned himself to his last resort: ripping away the covers off of Eren and simply dragging the boy out of bed.

"Alright, alright!" Eren sighed, giving up what little hope he had for that extra hour of sleep he was apparently never going to get. The disdain turned to slight anger as he glared up at his roommate, daring him to justify the abrupt awakening. Rivaille was already dressed and had his doctor's coat in his arm, which meant he was probably called to an emergency shift in the hospital, which most likely meant he was in a shittier mood than usual.

"The fridge," Rivaille stated simply, ignoring the look of death the younger boy was sending him as he pointed to said furniture object.

"Huh?"

"The fridge," Rivaille hissed, silently gesturing toward the kitchen, signaling the younger male to check out exactly what was wrong.

"What about the goddamned fridge?" Eren practically yelled, throwing his hands in the air, exasperated with the antics of his roommate.

"Look inside it." Rivaille replied, voice eerily even as he pinched the bridge of his nose. As Eren clambered up to wander off into the kitchen, Rivaille looked after him with a scornful look on his face.

"Okay, what's the big deal?" Eren asked, sticking his head in the refrigerator. The cool air felt good against his abused face.

"What's in it?" Rivaille grumbled, emerging from the bedroom.

"Nothing!" Eren replied, annoyed.

"Exactly! I told you to buy some groceries on your way home yesterday!"

"Must have slipped my mind! I'm only human."

"I texted you after your class ended, it should have been fresh in your mind."

"I'm sorry I'm such an idiot then!"

"Would you care to explain to me why I'm playing the role of the housewife here? All you do is pay half the rent, why do I always have to keep the apartment in shape? You may have homework and tests but I have peoples' lives to deal with."

"No one's asking you to clean or anything, you're just a clean freak with OCD who-"

"I dare you to say that again."

"What? The part where I correct you or the part where I call you a bad name because God forbid anyone insults your name, oh great Mr. Rivaille!"

"Why are you being so difficult? Is a simple task as getting groceries too much for you to handle?"

"I wouldn't be so difficult if you hadn't woken me up at 6 in the fucking morning!"

"You know what? Never mind, I'm out. I've got enough dying patients to deal with without having to listen to the shit a college freshman throws at me."

Rivaille stormed off, leaving a fuming Eren to knock over a cup or two in his fury. Both of which he would pick up later out of fear of Rivaille's wrath.

Eren never understood Rivaille's affinity, or rather, obsession, with keeping things in tip-top shape. Groceries weren't even that big of a deal, it wasn't like they had no food in the house and Eren could always make an emergency run if he had to. He supposed being a doctor wasn't all fun and games, and often caused one to have a tendency to snap at their roommate, but this was a bit too overboard. If this was what he was studying for, then he seriously considered changing majors.

And to think he thought 2 months ago that this would gradually die out.

x

It all started when Eren told his dad he wanted to major in psychology.

Of course his dad was absolutely elated; it was common knowledge he wanted his son to take over his spot one day as one of the most famed doctors in the country, but was always disappointed in the past when he saw Eren loafing around and getting into fights with other kids in school. He had long since given up Mikasa, as she wished to become a police officer, despite her excellent grades that could have landed her wherever she wanted.

So when his son who he had almost given up on told him that he wanted to follow his dad's footsteps, Dr. Jaeger was more than willing to make arrangements for Eren to do so.

Which was how he ended up enrolling in one of the most prestigious medical schools ever with the help of his father's fame and alumni status: Recon University.

Fearing Eren would get stuck in a dorm with a potential enemy his son would fight with and end up leading to his own downfall, Dr. Jaeger arranged Eren to live with one of his trusted colleague's colleague, another well-known person in the medical field who reluctantly agreed to have Eren has a roommate, not only as a living partner but as a junior that could learn from an accomplished doctor. It was perfect, especially because of this person's reputation for a no-nonsense personality and the repercussions that came with disobeying his orders.

Of course, all of this was done before Eren had time to protest.

x

That was the story of how Eren got stuck with living with one of the most hard-ass people he'd ever meet. He could tell his stay was going to be anything but pleasant when he rang the doorbell to his new roommate's apartment in downtown Manhattan on a rainy day, to make sure the person was ready for the big move the next day.

"Hello-"

And cue the first words that would have marked the beginnings of a long journey between the two clashing personalities:

"Leave your shoes by the mat, they're fucking dirty. My name is Rivaille and I swear to God if you track any mud in my place, I will kick your sorry ass, is that clear?"


	2. League of Legends

"Rivaille, I need the printer for a project that's due in a week and it's really lon- WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Rivaille threw his headset across the room as he looked up at the startled teen with equally bewildered eyes, the complete opposite from his usual default expression.

"Is that-"

"It's not what you think it is, Eren."

Eren stared at Rivaille in disbelief, then back at the computer screen, where the content juxtaposed whatever excuse Rivaille was about to spout at him.

"Rivaille, I-"

"This isn't just anything little brats like you can handle,"

"But-!"

"Give me the flashdrive, I'll print it out for you."

"I-"

"Go to sleep, it's 11 at night and you have a test tomorrow."

Dismayed, Eren handed over the drive with his project on it and hurriedly left the room, frozen and pondering about what just went on. He figured the only person he could probably rant to at this hour was the one person he really didn't want to bother under normal circumstances, but the screen on Rivaille's computer screamed otherwise. Eren picked up his phone, scrolled through his contacts, and hit 'call'.

The phone was picked up after 3 rings. "It's 11 at night, Eren, what's wron-"

"Armin, you won't believe what I just saw."

Armin, his childhood friend, seemed to be stirring from sleep as he registered what Eren was saying.

"Did something bad happen? Did you get into another fight? Are you hurt?"

"What, no! Why do you always assume the worst about me?"

"Why else would you call me so late into the night? We have a test tomorrow, you know…"

"I know, but listen up. You know my roommate, right?"

"Dr. Rivaille? Yes, why?"

"And you know how much of a hard-ass he is, right?"

"Yes, Eren, you call and text me with complaints about the man 24/7, I think I'd know by now."

"Well, I just walked into the room because I needed to use the printer…"

"Uh huh?"

"And his computer screen…"

"What?" Armin sounded slightly scared.

"Unbelievable. Just…I'm shocked," Eren sighed.

"Well, what was on it? Some kind of top-secret government agency information?"

"No, seriously, you have to stop assuming the worst-"

"Porn?"

"Um, even worse."

Armin let out a whoosh of air. He wondered if he had to call the police on Dr. Rivaille in case Eren was too petrified to do it, because his friend sounded really shaken up.

"What could possibly be worse than that?"

"Armin, I didn't know it was possible until I saw it on the screen."

"Uh-huh…?"

Eren let out a sigh as he lowered his voice to reveal the horrible truth.

"League of Legends."

There was a long silence on the other end.

"…Are you serious?" Armin's voice was laced with ludicrousness.

"No, Armin, you don't understand. He's ranked Platinum 1. PLATINUM 1."

"Yes, and?"

"I'm only Bronze 3…"

"Good night, Eren."


	3. Fire

Eren heard the door open and footsteps walking in.

"Rivaille, are you back?" he called, not taking his eye off the frying pan he was currently maneuvering.

"Yes, I'm back, and why the fuck are you in the kitchen?" Rivaille replied with a question that sounded more like a stop-what-you're-doing-right-now order than an inquiry.

"I-I figured, since you were working late tonight as well, I'd make something nice…" Eren answered sheepishly. Honestly, it was the truth; this was Rivaille's 5th consecutive night working on some hospital emergency that came up just as Rivaille was about to prop his feet up on the coffee table and watch some TV. Eren thought it was the norm until he noticed dark circles starting to appear on Rivaille's tired eyes.

Rivaille stood at the doorway connecting the living room to the kitchen with his hand tugging at his tie. He looked ready to jump into bed. Suddenly Eren started to regret making dinner; what was he thinking? All Rivaille probably wanted to do was sleep. Food must have been the last thing on his mind. "You can cook?" he asked, disbelieving.

"Um." Eren didn't know what to say. Usually there'd be some form of takeout or leftovers from Rivaille sticky-noted and neatly organized in the fridge but today he wanted to show some effort. However, this was his first time attempting such an ordeal. But how hard could it be, right? It was just chicken and rice…nothing a little Google search couldn't fix. "Yeah."

"Well, I'll believe you. I'm tired, I'll take a shower and finish up some work in my room so call me when you're done." Rivaille sighed, turning to head out the room. He didn't believe Eren, but he supposed it was still better than greasy take-out food he hated getting but had to resort to more often than not. It was a while since he had home cooking anyway.

He could have never expected to have to turn back because of an audible explosion that sounded very much like a mix of fire combustion and Eren's yelp.

"Fuck!"

"Shitty brat, what did you-"

Oh.

Rivaille had never seen such a horrific sight outside of Saturday morning cartoons. He always found the kitchens destroyed in an exaggerated manner due to a complete amateur trying to cook for the first time and failing miserably amusing.

But nothing about his stove currently engulfed in flames and nearby objects starting to melt quickly from the heat was amusing in the least.

Neither was the kid hopping about, confused as to what to do.

Hurriedly crossing the room and determining that the sink was way too close to the fire, Rivaille ripped off his suit jacket and threw it onto the fire, depriving the flames of oxygen and quenching it in a matter of seconds.

Eren stood to the side, eyes wide, shell-shocked. Seconds. That was all it took for Rivaille's pristine stove to be ruined. And it was all his fault. He was certain Rivaille would murder him. Eren wanted a chance to at least write a will before his life ended. He's dedicate half his life savings, or what little he had, to Mikasa, and the other half to Armin. And a big fuck you to Jean at his funeral. He honestly didn't know exactly what went wrong, one minute he was flipping the pan, the next, everything was flying everywhere and falling into the flames and oh God, Rivaille was turning this way and he was sure to be way more irascible than usual possibly with thoughts of homicide-

"Eren," Rivaille's piercing tone ripped Eren from his thoughts.

"Yes?!"Eren yelped, sounding like a dog as he prepared himself for the worst.

Silence.

"…Let's just order Chinese."

"…Good idea."


	4. The Box

"A package for a Mr. Jaegar?" A voice followed promptly after three knocks on the door to Rivaille's apartment. When the knocks didn't work, the man was insistent upon ringing the doorbell like there was no tomorrow.

Rivaille roused from sleep. He'd barely gotten any sleep in general since Eren's stunt with the stove a few days ago and he was now finally getting a break from all the stresses in his life.

But of course that wasn't to stay for long, oh no. Rivaille almost never had 3 consecutive hours of alone time without getting interrupted by something drastic.

Grumbling, Rivaille got off the couch and headed toward the door, unlocking it and opening the threshold to glare at the UPS man.

"Hi, is a Mr Jaegar home?" The delivery man seemed to overlook Rivaille's death-willing stare as he read the name on the medium-sized package.

"No, but I can take it for him," Rivaille replied, taking the box from the man and signing the paper that signified that the recipient had gotten their package.

"Have a nice day!" The man turned and headed off to the elevator, while Rivaille shut the door behind him.

"It was excellent until you came," he murmured as he set the box down and went to fly onto the couch. He immediately buried his face into the leathery seat and sighed deeply.

Then he started to wonder what the brat could have possibly received. Eren was in his classes right now, so it left an empty house and a curious Rivaille in it to wonder just what the kid could have been receiving. Was his birthday nearing? No, it was still two months off. So why would anyone want to send him something?

He tried to suppress these thoughts. It wasn't any of his business what the kid was getting from his friends or peers or whatever. But it wasn't like the box was small; it was a fairly considerable size. And it was pretty heavy too. When Rivaille shook it, he could hear various things clatter.

Was the kid dealing drugs?

That thought disturbed Rivaille greatly. He'd once been a part of that, his naïve, teenage days, but never again; if Eren was doing the same things as he once did he'd beat the shit out of the brat, because that's exactly what he should have gotten back in the day.

But it still wasn't really any of his business.

But then again, Erwin would give him hell if he were to go back on his promise with Grisha, and he was indebted to Grisha after all. And the promise was to keep Eren out of trouble.

So as a necessary precaution, he told himself, he would just take a peek into the box. Just a small peek. Then he'd tape it back as if nothing happened, then he'd be on his way to some nice sleep.

Rivaille couldn't deny the fact that he was slightly worried. Who knows what kids these days found entertaining? For all he knew, Eren could be involved in some serious crime ring, and that wouldn't be good, no, not at all.

The man got off the couch and went to his room, opening his bedside drawer to fumble for a box cutter. He found an old one he hadn't used in a while, because it wasn't like people sent him packages. Which was why he was slightly jealous of Eren for getting one but if it wasn't for good intentions, then…

Rivaille walked apprehensively out, to the living room, in front of the couch where the box rested. Sliding the box cutter open to the blade, he angled it with practiced ease and precision at the point in which the box divided in half, and cut it. A loud ripping noise followed, and the sound of a door opening and shutting came right after.

"I'm home- WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY PACKAGE?"

Rivaille froze. Shit. What time was it? Why was the brat home so early? Did he really lose that much time reminiscing on what to do?

"It was a half day today," Eren crossed the room to the box, looking disgusted. Rivaille stood and moved out of the way, Eren protectively hugging the box to pick it up.

"Are you dealing drugs?" Rivaille asked. Well. Beating around the bush wasn't really his forte.

"What? No!" Eren replied, a little too quickly.

"Let me see the box," Rivaille demanded.

Eren turned slightly so the edge of the box showed. "You see it," he said cautiously.

Rivaille narrowed his eyes. "This is an ORDER, Jaegar," he said in a dangerous tone.

Eren looked miffed. "This is MY package! It's none of your business!"

"It is if you're dealing meth out of my damn house!"

"You've been watching too much Breaking Bad lately!"

"Then let me see what's in the box!"

"No!"

"Give it here, brat,"

"This is my box, not yours!"

At that point Rivaille snapped, trying to take the box away by force.

"Stop it!"

"Then let go!"

Eren didn't have to, because the contents came tumbling out when Rivaille tugged a bit too harshly.

Clear CD cases with scratched CDs in them fell out, clattering to the floor.

Eren snapped. "Those were my baby videos, you jerk!" He scrambled to the floor to pick the contents up, stuffing them back into the box and scrambling back up.

"Then why didn't you-"

"Because they're really embarrassing!" Eren huffed and took the box into his own room.

Rivaille, for once in his life, looked after Eren, stunned and feeling like he totally deserved that one.

X

"Hey, Eren, did you get the goods?" a voice asked.

Eren held the phone up to his cheek with his shoulder as he typed his essay for class.

"Jean, I swear to God, next time you send me porn unwarranted like that, I'm going to go all the way to California just to kick your ass."


	5. Tone Deaf

One thing Rivaille wasn't warned of when Eren moved in was his affinity for music.

He supposed he should have suspected something when Eren started to play music at a huge volume at 12 in the night.

But what surprised Rivaille was that Eren didn't listen to as much pop or what young people listened to these days as he expected from a college student. Eren listened to classical music and opera.

Frankly, Rivaille didn't mind the classics. But once the annoyingly autotuned music of the 21st century came on, he would barge straight into Eren's room to give him a talking to.

One day, Eren decided to question this like the shitty brat he was.

"How come you always come in when pop is playing?" Eren asked, looking up from his laptop at a disheveled Rivaille. Said man narrowed his eyes. Eren swiveled his rolling chair to face Rivaille.

"How come you always feel the need to blast shittyass music at top volume at 12 in the morning?" he retorted.

"I mean, the volume is the same with the classicals and the operas…" Eren remarked. "But I don't see you complaining about that."

"There's a fine line between soothing strings and a sudden influx of unforgiving beats, you know," Rivaille rolled his eyes.

Eren took that into consideration and sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck.

"Did I wake you up with my music?" he asked.

"Noooo," Rivaille dragged out the o's, which signified sarcasm.

"Well, it's not like I'm doing it to please myself, either," Eren shrugged.

Rivaille raised an eyebrow. Noticing Rivaille's questioning look, Eren sighed.

"Look, I was roped into joining choir by a close friend, okay?" Eren confessed.

Rivaille had to bite his tongue to keep himself from laughing. That would explain the classical as opposed to the crappy pop music.

Eren swiveled back to his desk and put his face in his hands. "It's really embarrassing, but it's not like it's unpleasant; well, the end-of-the-year showcase apparently is, but other than that, it's an easy 100, I hear."

Rivaille coughed. He supposed it made sense. "So…does that mean you sing?"

Eren flushed. "No!"

"The showcase requires singing, doesn't it?" Rivaille cocked his head to the side.

"I-I decided to become a stagehand." Eren looked away.

That offhand response irritated Rivaille. "Don't play dumb with me, Eren, I've been to college and I know well enough there are separate classes for that."

Eren bit his lip. "Times have changed since you went to school-"

"Sing." Rivaille narrowed his eyes.

"Huh?"

"Sing."

"Why should I?"

"Now."

"But!"

"Sing. NOW."

Rivaille's voice was as menacing as it could get. Fuck. That meant Rivaille wasn't joking around. He actually wasn't going to leave until Eren did as he was told. Eren acquiesced and stood up, knowing the only way to get the man out of his room at this point was to do what he told him to do. Looking expectantly at Rivaille, who was in his sweatpants and a white long-sleeved shirt, Eren took a deep breath as Rivaille crossed his arms. Eren's rapid heartbeat reflected his nervousness as he drew shaky breaths. It was bad enough to sing with a bunch of people, because at least then he could ad-lib, but alone in a room with a man whom he respected but probably wasn't going to look at the same way again?

A one, a two-

A few seconds later, Rivaille would find out exactly why Eren was so reluctant to join choir.


	6. Pacific Rim

Eren looked forward to Fridays.

Not just because it was the last day of the week that signified a weekend of either crazy fun or just sleeping in until 3 in the afternoon, but it also meant Friday night takeouts and watching a movie on Netflix with Rivaille, which was probably the only bonding time they would ever share.

However, the last two Fridays it was mostly Rivaille falling asleep two minutes into the movie due to exhaustion from emergency calls from work, which ended up in Eren having to bring Rivaille's blankets out to the couch so the man could sleep peacefully. This week, Rivaille had a fairly normal schedule, no emergencies involved, so he would be alert and active with Eren during the movie.

It was a fun thing they had. It started when Eren was caught using Rivaille's Netflix account a few weeks back, and was probably in for an unrelenting diatribe if it weren't for the fact that Rivaille apparently liked the movie Eren was watching. Which surprised Eren because who knew Rivaille was into Disney Princess movies as well? No wonder they kept popping up on the recommended list.

After that embarrassing confession, the two found that they shared similar tastes in movies in general, except for the fact that while in general, Rivaille preferred action, Eren preferred comedy. But the two managed to find movies around that, like the Hangover series or 21 Jump Street.

It became a regular thing on Friday nights, since it was probably the only time the two had intersecting schedules for free time.

Rivaille's leather couch was absolutely perfect for movies.

The best part about watching movies with Rivaille, though, was that he always had some witty, sassy remark at the right times that made Eren double over in laughter until the man told him to shut the fuck up. His naturally critical personality always managed to bleed into the movies they watched. Eren would secretly relay those remarks without proper credit to his friends, making him seem wittier than he actually was.

It was a silent agreement that Eren would always order the food, and Rivaille would pick the film.

Eren walked into the apartment to find Rivaille sprawled out on the couch and aiming the remote towards the TV, probably contemplating which movie to watch.

"Anything good?" Eren asked.

Rivaille sat up quickly and scooted over to the further end of the couch, making room for Eren. Eren put down the Chinese food and flopped back onto the opposite end.

"The Purge?" Rivaille suggested.

"Nah, the previews looked good but my friends tell me the overall movie sucked." Eren replied, leaning forward to grab at the noodles and chopsticks.

Rivaille turned back to the screen, squinting. "Kick-Ass 2," he said.

Eren shook his head, shoving his mouth with noodles. "I want to save that for after finals, when I inevitably fail."

Rivaille rolled his eyes. Then something caught his attention.

"Pacific Rim," he read.

Eren considered it and nodded, a bright look in his eyes. "Yeah! I heard it was REALLY good. All over Tumblr, too," he said, thinking back to all the fanarts and posts about the movie he saw while scrolling through Tumblr on his phone.

Rivaille clicked on the movie and leaned back, gesturing for Eren to hand him some noodles as well. "Then it's settled," he said as Eren gave him a box of noodles and chopsticks of his own.

The movie started playing, and it was silent for about 10 minutes before Rivaille's critical onslaughts of sarcasm began to take shape.

"Jaeger? Isn't that your last name?" Rivaille asked, staring at the screen. Eren nodded. What a weird coincidence.

A few more minutes in, and all the food was gone.

"I feel like the Asian is gonna die soon," Rivaille commented.

"Why?" Eren asked.

"It's always the girl with the troubled past and all that good shit that dies first," Rivaille responded sagely.

Eren nodded, pretending to know what Rivaille was talking about.

The fortune cookies were still in their wrappers.

"So the alien things aren't evil?" Eren asked, reading his fortune for the regular bullshit that gave hope in certain situations. 'You will find that your lover was right by you this entire time,' it read. Why couldn't it give anything useful for a change? Such as, 'If you don't study your ass off until the finals, you're gonna fail'?

"No, they still are, but the only way to beat the damn things is if you become one of them. Though if that was all it took to figure it out, then I don't see why they couldn't have captured the damn things and connected brains sooner," Rivaille corrected.

One fortune cookie was left.

"Aww, the kaiju is pregnant," Eren cooed.

And then the baby ate Chau.

"What the fuck?!" Rivaille spoke for both of them when he attempted to verbalize the plot twist into words. They really should have seen that coming.

Rivaille reached for the cookie at the same time as Eren, and their hands brushed. Eren backed off immediately.

"God, the way they emphasize them becoming one, it's like some weird, kinky porn video," Rivaille commented. Eren shrugged, he rather liked the chemistry between Mori and Becket but he didn't want to get into it now. He knew Rivaille wasn't a huge fan of romance but the movie, surprisingly, did a good job of evening out the romance and the actual plot.

"They're both going to die, I assure you."

After that, there was surprisingly a lesser amount of words from the older man as the two watched the movie in silence. It was amazing, best movie Eren had seen in a long time. The graphics, the acting, the emotions, they were simply sublime.

That was, until the end.

Rivaille looked upset his theory was incorrect. He threw up his hands into the air.

"So they both survive? Are you kidding me?"

"I think it's cool they both survive," Eren shrugged.

Rivaille rolled his eyes, aiming to off the TV and eyeing the mess before them on the coffee table.

"No, wait, there's a funny post-credits scene," Eren said.

And funny it was, when Chau ripped out of the kaiju's stomach. Even Rivaille had to suppress a chuckle at the "Where's my goddamn shoe?"

"God, this is disgusting. Get the washcloth," Rivaille ordered, shutting the TV off. Eren nodded assent, wandering into the kitchen for a spare one.

"Haha, lucky we don't live in a world where huge, creepy alien things attempt to eat humans, right?" Eren laughed lightheartedly. "I mean, the enemy becoming your greatest asset and humanity's only hope? Having to seal the threshold between humans and monsters with the enemy's help? That's pretty badass."

"Mmhmm. Now shut up and help me clean," Rivaille grumbled, a tone of agreement in his voice.


	7. Crash Course

"Eren, what is this?" Rivaille marched into Eren's room, holding a scrap of paper. The occupant was currently on the bed, lying down and clicking furiously away at his laptop and mouse, headset firmly set on his head. Eren was mindlessly swearing and belting out terrible orders as he tried to organize his team for an attack formation on what seemed to be League of Legends.

"Fucking brat," Rivaille stomped over to the kid and sent a crunching blow to his ribs with a menacing kick. Eren looked startled as he jolted away from Rivaille with wide eyes. Taking off his headset, Eren seemed to get ready to chew Rivaille out when he saw the paper in Rivaille's hand. Eren immediately turned pale.

"Care to explain what a D- is doing on your essay?" Rivaille growled.

"Umm…I'm really not the person to ask." Eren muttered, putting down his headset. Rivaille could vaguely hear the anguished cries of his teammates as Eren went AFK. From the looks of it, the team was bound to lose anyway; it had lousy support and an ADC who didn't know what they were doing. No surprise it was Eren.

Noticing Rivaille looking at the screen with disdain, Eren quickly shut it and sit cross-legged at the edge of his bed. Rivaille followed suit, sitting a few inches away from Eren and handing over the paper to him like it was radioactive material.

"Why are you falling behind on your studies, Eren?" Rivaille demanded after a few seconds of silence.

Eren turned away. "…I don't know."

Rivaille snorted. "I think I know. The answer's right there," he motioned to the laptop.

Eren huffed. "You wouldn't understand. College is really stressful, and I've been playing League to take my mind off it."

Rivaille narrowed his eyes. "You do realize the only reason I'm where I'm at today is because I went to college to earn a degree, right?"

Eren sighed. "I know! But that was what, 50 years ago?"

Rivaille felt a vague sense of irritation at that. He didn't even have wrinkles yet. If anything, he looked way too young for his actual age. He doubted Eren meant it seriously but it still pissed him off.

"Listen, kid, if you don't start getting your grades up, I'm going to have to cut you off from a lot of things, starting with your laptop itself." Rivaille pinched the bridge of his nose. Never in his life did he expect to deal with such a shitty brat like this. He had better things to do, why was he even bothering with such a predicament when he could have been watching the final episodes of Breaking Bad?

"…You're grounding me?" Eren asked in disbelief.

"Not if you get your shit together," Rivaille replied simply, getting up.

"It's just calculus!" Eren scrambled up, following Rivaille out into the hall to the living room. "You can't possibly ground me for that!"

Rivaille sighed. "If it were up to me, trust me kid, I wouldn't care less. But this is your father we're talking about, do you want to let him down?"

Eren shut his mouth at that. His father was indeed putting a lot of hope into Eren, and if he were to let him down…

"Look," Rivaille turned and stared right into Eren's worried eyes. "I'm not going to snitch on you, only if you start getting at least a B-plus in calculus."

Eren bit his lips. It was really hard to rebound from a D to a B-plus. Finals were coming up, but to get at least a B-plus for his final grade he'd have to get an A-plus. But it wasn't like this D would cause the end of his career…on the other hand, though, he'd rather graduate with an A than a B. Apparently the predicament was evident, because Rivaille sighed.

"Which is why I'm going to help you," he said.

Eren looked up. Could he have heard right? "Huh?"

Narrowing his eyes, Rivaille prodded a finger into Eren's chest. "I'm going to help you get an A-plus on your final, but that can only work out if you cooperate. You'd better be ready for sleepless weekends and boot camp, because I'm teaching you from the basics."

Eren gulped.

X

(6 days)

The week before finals were hell.

Rivaille wasn't exaggerating when he said boot camp.

"You got 24 questions wrong out of 50! What the hell! Do it all over again." Rivaille ordered, not even blinking at Eren's shocked look.

"Twenty-fucking-four? That's not even possible," Eren said, burying his face in his hands.

Surprisingly, Rivaille wasn't as violent and irascible as Eren predicted he would be. He was actually kind of…nice? About the whole situation, at least, considering it was Rivaille. If anything, he was lucky Rivaille hadn't smacked him with the heavy textbook that he was carrying, reading off the answers. He looked like he wanted to for a while now.

X

(5 days)

5 days were left until finals and Eren had gotten 3 hours of sleep total.

He had dark circles around his eyes, curse his weak skin. Rivaille seemed like he worked 48 hours in a row without sleep and his eyes were perfectly fine.

"Twenty questions out of fifty, not bad, but not good either," Rivaille commented offhandedly, checking Eren's work.

Eren would have been shocked at the nicer comment if he weren't fighting to stay awake.

X

(4 days)

"What is the limit as x approaches infinity of (1 + (k/x)) to the x?" Rivaille asked randomly as the two took a dinner break.

"Wha-" Eren was caught off guard with a napkin to the face.

"Too slow, next time, you'd better be ready." Rivaille smirked slightly, causing Eren to choke on his pasta. It had been a long time since he saw Rivaille with anything but a scowl or a straight line on his face.X

(3 days)

"Twelve questions out of fifty." Rivaille nodded, eyebrows raised, impressed. "Not bad at all, kid."

Despite his fatigue and pounding headache, Eren brought himself to smile. If he weren't so drowsy, he could have sworn he felt a blush creeping its way through his face.

X

(2 days)

Eren rubbed his face as Rivaille checked his work with an approving look. He was absolutely tired but for some reason he felt good, better than he had in a long time. Maybe the break from League and the focus onto something else entirely had something to do with it. Or maybe it was just Rivaille.

"Hey, Eren, say you have a double integral of a continuous function over a bounded region, and you calculate it by evaluating the integrals one at a time. Whose theorem did you just use?" Rivaille asked nonchalantly.

"Fubini's theorem," Eren yawned, then caught himself as he stared wide-eyed at Rivaille, who looked just as surprised.

"…Good job, brat."

X

(1 day)

Eren came back home ready for the last day of the crash course, only to find Rivaille slumped on the couch.

"Um…Rivaille?" Eren asked.

Rivaille looked up. "What?"

"Aren't we going to study?" Eren looked confused.

Rivaille shook his head and pat the seat next to him. Eren sat down, bewildered.

"You took the shit I threw at you well, kid. I've never seen anyone go through that without some sort of mental breakdown."

Eren felt embarrassed for some reason, and looked away. If criticism from Rivaille made him uncomfortable, then praise from Rivaille was in a whole other category.

"You did good," Rivaille said, reaching over to ruffle Eren's hair. "Good luck on your finals."

Eren could have sworn there was the tiniest hint of a smile on the stoic male's face.

X

(1 week later)

Eren came into the apartment with a dejected look on his face.

Rivaille noticed immediately.

He sighed. "Lay it on me."

Eren slowly pulled out a paper from his bag.

"I got…" His frown unexpectedly turned into a huge smile. "An A!"

Then, Rivaille really did smile, even if it was just for a split second.


	8. Fever

Incessant coughing was what woke Rivaille up at 3 in the morning.

Grumbling, he hopped out of bed and kicked his door open, crossing the narrow hall to the room across from his, Eren's room. Which would have been a personal gym if the brat's dad didn't decide to ship him off to college.

"You piece of shit, some of us are trying to sleep here." Rivaille grumbled, displeased. He cracked the door open slightly to find a human-sized bulge in the blankets, and it looked to be shivering.

Something told Rivaille this wasn't a good situation. And he didn't need his doctor's instinct to figure that out.

"Hey, what's your problem?" Rivaille asked, slightly concerned now that he saw what he probably should have suspected earlier.

Eren's voice came out raspy and gross. "Nothing, I'm fine,"

"You aren't fine, look at you." Rivaille sighed, knowing he wasn't going to get any sleep tonight either. "What did you even do?"

"I don't know, I guess I've been overworking myself."

"Playing League and procrastinating essays is not overworking yourself," Rivaille replied snarkily, though he did have to admit, the kid had survived his boot camp, which was a pretty damn good accomplishment.

"But…I've been trying my best, and…" Eren coughed. Rivaille cringed, he could definitely hear something in there. The brat most certainly was not fine.

"Absolutely disgusting. Flip over," Rivaille commanded. He let years of medical experience kick in as Eren struggled to turn onto his back for Rivaille to examine him.

Rivaille first put the back of his palm to Eren's sweaty (gross) forehead. It was indeed burning hot. Eren was wheezing and practically dying in the bed as he struggled to breathe with whatever clogged his sinuses.

"I'm going to have to get a thermometer to see how sick you really are, Eren," Rivaille said cautiously.

Eren wheezed, and Rivaille took that as a yes.

Walking leisurely to the bathroom to get the thermometer, Rivaille pondered upon just how Eren could have caught a cold. Rivaille worked for days on end and he never felt so much as a sore throat in all his years. Surely it wasn't the whole boot camp thing that bit Eren in the ass.

But then again, Eren wasn't as fit as Rivaille. What were fit college students now, even?

A minute later, Rivaille had located the thermometer and stuck the thing inside Eren's mouth quite haphazardly, as the kid gagged for a second before going back into a sickly state of silence.

"100.4," Rivaille read off the thermometer once it beeped. "You're hot."

Eren managed a weak smile. "Thanks."

Rivaille rolled his eyes. "You realize if you weren't sick at the moment, you'd be on the floor?"

Eren coughed, much to the dismay of Rivaille. "I guess,"

Sighing, the older man got up.

"I'm gonna go get you water and shit," he said. "To keep you under check." As he turned, though, hand shot out and grabbed whatever article of Rivaille it could, which, in this case, was the back of his shirt.

"Don't go," Eren pleaded.

"Huh?" Rivaille's first instinct was to force Eren's hand off, but he decided against being so rough with a sick person.

"Don't," Cough. Cough. "Don't leave me," Eren tried, blushing (or maybe it was just the fever heating up his face) in the process.

"You need to drink, Eren." Rivaille deadpanned.

"No," Eren protested. Well, as raspy and sick as protesting can get.

Rivaille tried his best not to lose his patience with such sick people. God knows how he even kept his patience with some of the people he had to diagnose and treat at work. Maybe it was because it was Eren he was dealing with, he got irked more easily. He wasn't some total asshole who got pissed at random strangers, after all. Most of the time, at least.

"What do you want, then?" Rivaille asked, exasperated. He turned to see a bloodshot Eren looking at him with weary eyes and felt guilty about even losing a bit of his patience with the kid, who looked like he'd been to hell and back.

"You," Eren replied after another round of coughing. "I want you."

"Huh." Rivaille's question came out to be more like a statement, the way he said it.

"You," Eren said. With that, he gave a sharp tug so Rivaille fell back onto the bed, somehow landing directly next to Eren.

"What the fuck-" There was no use in protesting. No point either, because the kid was pretty much knocked out immediately. The strength it took to tug Rivaille back must have been all that was left of him. But with his fucking limbs immediately tangling around Rivaille's body like some sort of fucking jellyfish? Really?

Rivaille fought the urge to squirm out of Eren's grip. He could literally feel the germs spreading their way to him. He wasn't in a comfortable position, either. For all he knew, he could have just busted out of there with force, but-

Well. The kid was sick.

And at least they weren't face-to-face.

More like they were spooning, but the kid was sick, in the end.

At least that was what he would tell himself from now on to justify him actually spending the night on the same bed with the sickly college student.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heylo peeps I never remembered to thank you all for the kudos and kind comments because I'm kinda dumb like that yeah ahh you are the best and please continue reading, because there will be lotsa things going on from here on out  
> Also if I'm slow on updating it's because high school is a pain in the ass so I'll apologize in advance


	9. Side Story: College

"So, Eren, how is it like, living with Dr. Rivaille?"

Eren looked to his left, where Sasha was looking inquiringly up at him. Next to her were a line of other students waiting to get lunch in the college cafeteria, looking impatient as Eren and Sasha stopped to converse.

He slid his tray down to the vegetables, wary of the murderously hungry college students.

"I mean, it's not any different than living at home with your parents," Eren replied. Living with the other man for a few months now, he really didn't know what to say. At first, Rivaille indeed seemed like the unapproachable god everyone else thought he was, but in reality, he was a shorter-than-average man with a short temper and OCD. It was like living with him opened a whole new side for Eren to see.

And then he just had to go and fuck it up with the fever incident.

For a few days now, the two seemed to be avoiding each other, eating meals at separate times and making minimal contact. The morning Eren woke up with Rivaille in his arms was the moment he knew everything was going to go to shit.

"Really? I always imagined he'd be godlike; I've never seen him in real life before, but I hear he's really handsome and responsible and basically a perfect human being," Connie piped up from next to Sasha, who nodded in agreement.

Eren shrugged and headed to the cash register. Perfect human being? Maybe not so much, but really handsome…that was for sure. Sasha and Connie followed suit. "I thought that too, but that can only last so long after living with him for so long, you know?"

"Next," the cash register lady called, prompting Eren to dig through his pockets for money and handing it over to her. The woman looked uninterested as she counted his change and gave it to Eren.

He briskly walked over to his usual table, a huge, circular table smack in the middle of the other tables, where friends sat. Christa greeted him, sandwiched between Reiner and Ymir but angelic as always. The rest of the people didn't seem to even care. Next to Reiner were Bertholdt and Annie, polar opposites of each other in terms of personality and physical appearance. Next to Ymir was Marco, who seemed to be laughing at a joke Bertholdt was telling. Sasha and Connie trailed behind Eren.

"Aw man, here come the extras," Ymir grumbled as she moved closer to Christa. "Guess I'll have to move my shit." But everyone knew that was a blatant excuse to sit closer to the petite blonde who literally had no idea she was being hit on by Reiner and Ymir.

Eren, Sasha, and Connie squeezed in between Marco and Ymir.

"What took you guys so long?" Christa asked.

"We were asking Eren about Dr. Rivaille," Sasha replied, shoving bread into her mouth and savoring the taste of it quite predictably. Eren choked.

"The smoking hot, mysterious doctor that's supposedly a genius and living with Eren?" Ymir leaned on her elbow and smirked. "Do tell."

Eren sputtered. Hot? That was probably the last word he'd use to describe Rivaille. Not that he wasn't good-looking, but hot was a pretty strong term to describe someone…

"Have your cycles synched yet?" Reiner teased, causing a roar of laughter to go around the table. Eren blushed with embarrassment, but found himself lacking words to spit back.

"It's okay, Eren, ignore them." Christa tried to console the poor boy by offering him a biscuit. Just as Eren was about to take it, though, Ymir intervened and shoved it into her mouth, earning a sharp headbutt from Christa.

"Hey, Eren, when you get sick, does he take care of you like you're a ba~by?" Ymir added fire to the fuel, causing another round of raucous laughter to go around, and Eren to blush harder because that was exactly what happened a few days ago. A few people sitting near them left in disgust and irritation. Noticing this, Bertholdt gave the table a look that shut them up for about 10 more seconds.

"I heard he once was a thug," Naturally, Connie broke the silence, causing Sasha to gasp, and everyone else roll their eyes.

"Don't be silly, why would a thug be the successful man Dr. Rivaille is today?" Reiner laughed.

Annie shook her head. "I heard that too. That he was a notorious black-market agent who knew no boundaries and committed every type of crime possible."

The table fell silent at that, do the displeasure of Connie. "So when she says it, it's plausible?" his questions fell on deaf ears.

"Hey, Eren, is it true?" Bertholdt asked. The table's nature suddenly dropped from annoyingly pleasant to cold, uneasy trepidation. Not because they cared much about Eren's well-being, but rather, they didn't want to be the next targets of a potential thug.

Eren coughed. "What? No! I mean. I don't know." He frowned. "I don't think so."

"You've never seen him with some white powder in a Ziploc bag, weapons, anything?" Ymir asked.

"Absolutely not. Rivaille- I mean, Dr. Rivaille isn't that kind of person." Eren replied indignantly.

"But if it's Annie who heard this…" Even Christa seemed unsure.

"Yeah, Annie is pretty reliable." Marco agreed. Annie herself just looked down at her plate.

"You should go through his shit, Eren, check if he has any guns, germs, or steel," Ymir suggested with snarky sarcasm in her voice.

Eren felt anger and protectiveness flare up in his chest and didn't exactly know why. His eyebrows furrowed with irritation. "You guys barely know him, so you can't just assume things like that!" His voice was laced with enough peevishness to cause the table to fall silent once again.

Then Marco smiled. "I think someone's attached to his roommate~" he teased, nudging Eren with his elbow.

"Huh?"

Knowing smiles went around the table.

"You're fucking him, aren't you?" Ymir snickered.

Once again, Eren was baffled by his friends' abilities to come up with such ridiculous conclusions based on a couple of words from him. Just two days ago, Ymir found his prank porn collection from Jean and had managed to spread it around to half the campus, causing looks of awe and fear to be directed towards Eren from students that didn't know the truth. Last week he said he tried a cigarette once and Christa and Sasha immediately jumped on him, accusing him of being a druggie. The week before that he fessed up to having tried beer once and was almost put into rehab, courtesy of Reiner.

"How do you guys even manage to get that from this?" Eren wailed, exasperated. He was done. Absolutely done with his friends. He put his head in his arms and hunched over the table. Marco gave him a consoling pat.

Reiner and Bertholdt exchanged knowing glances, much to the chagrin of Annie.

"It's perfectly normal to have feelings for your roomie, Eren," Bertholdt offered enthusiastically.

'You would know,' thought Eren as he thought back to the time Annie caught Reiner and Bertholdt cuddling in the same bed after a frat party gone wild. She put it up on Facebook with the caption "I never want to triple dorm again with people again. 80 bucks if you want this down", and it got at least 70 likes before the two victims paid her to take it off the Internet.

But did he like Rivaille? Romantically? Eren didn't know. He certainly did feel something after the day he fell sick and Rivaille skipped work just to take care of him. But was it necessarily love? And it wasn't like Rivaille was hideous. Rivaille was very good-looking for a male. Short, but pretty damn fine. And if Eren got through all his impassive quirks, Rivaille was a pretty nice person overall. Unpleasant, yes. Clean freak, yes. Not willing to deal with much shit? Absolutely. But impossible to deal with? No.

And the topic of a few days ago still kept coming back to him.

Christa smiled, eager to offer advice to her poor friend. "Eren, it's fine if you have feelings for him. You've lived with him for a long time now, haven't you? It's a perfectly normal thing to feel if you've been together with someone in the same space for a long period of time. It may be confusing now, but you'll come to terms with what you feel for your roommate, be what it may be; it might not end up being love, or it might, that's completely up to you. But I support you on whatever decision you make, and I'm sure everyone else here does, as well."

Eren looked up, and he could have sworn Christa was radiating some sort of godlike light.

The rest of the males at the table became mush as well, much to the annoyance of Ymir.

"This is getting boring. Let's get out of here, Christa," Ymir complained, getting up to throw her lunch out. Christa followed suit, and the table slowly disintegrated to class, leaving Eren alone and pondering about his newfound predicament.


	10. Squad Rivaille

For a week or so, Rivaille and Eren kept conversation at a bare minimum.

Ever since the awkward morning after Eren's fever broke, and the talk his college friends gave him, Eren felt himself slowly distancing himself from Rivaille unconsciously, even though he didn't want to. He knew all too well that something like this should be talked out with words, not avoidance. And then there was the whole thug thing to think about.

Eren dragged his feet as he walked home in the cooler weather. When had it become so cold? It seemed like just yesterday, it was hot, sticky, humid, and he was moving boxes into Rivaille's guest room.

It seemed every train of thought in Eren's mind led him straight to Rivaille once again.

But he really didn't want to go home today, as it was Friday and they were most likely not going to watch a movie, not today, oh no. He almost wished he took up Connie's offer to go play the new Grand Theft Auto game that came out a couple days ago but Eren wasn't really all that interested in the concept of "Fuck bitches, get money", as Ymir put it. He figured since everyone from their lunch group was going, what was one less person?

If he had thought ahead to the inevitable awkwardness of the situation, however, he would have reconsidered.

Sighing, Eren reached into his pocket for his keys. He'd dragged himself all the way from school to home, and he really didn't want to face the heavy atmosphere in the house-

At least, that's all he got up to as the door swung open before he could turn the knob, revealing a seemingly ecstatic woman with glasses smiling back at him.

"I thought you looked familiar! Hi! Are you Eren?" The woman asked, scrutinizing Eren from head to toe.

Eren was quite shocked as she mussed his hair, examined his torso, and pat his cheeks, like he was some sort of test subject. Who was this woman and what the hell was she doing in Rivaille's house?

"Miss Hanji, I think you're scaring the boy…" Another pleasant, feminine voice popped up as a orange-blonde-ish-haired woman poked up from behind the creepy lady, with an apologetic smile on her face.

Hold up.

Why were there two women…

In Rivaille's house…?

"P-Prostitutes?" Eren blurted out, much to the visible chagrin of the smaller woman behind Hanji, and the amusement of Hanji herself. He never knew when to keep his mouth shut.

"Do you honestly expect me to go so low as to invite whores into my own house?" Rivaille's voice prodded Eren as he emerged from the elevator with groceries. Eren whipped around on instinct at Rivaille's harsh tone, but quickly turned back to Hanji and the other woman, blushing slightly. He didn't realize Rivaille wasn't even home. Hanji laughed loudly.

"Oh man, Rivaille, you weren't kidding about his imagination running wild! I remember when I was that age…" she chuckled, moving out of the way so Rivaille could push himself between Eren and Hanji to set down the groceries.

"It really makes no difference, whatever age you're at you'll still be fucking crazy," Rivaille sighed, pulling off his gloves and scarf.

"It's not crazy! It's called genius with a sense of curiosity," Hanji babbled as she followed an annoyed Rivaille into the house. The shorter woman looked up at Eren and smiled.

"Hi! I'm Petra Ral," she said, holding out her hand for Eren to shake. Eren absentmindedly took her hand as she motioned for him to come in so she could close the door.

"Uh, yeah, hi," Eren really didn't know how to reply. Who were these woman and why were they in Rivaille's house?

Was Rivaille a Mormon?

"I suppose you're wondering who I am?" Petra laughed lightheartedly. Eren nodded, still recovering from the shock at the sudden encounter. "Sorry, I should have introduced myself better. I'm one of the doctors on Rivaille's team, and Ms. Hanji, the…rambunctious woman just now, she's my superior, and the best forensic pathologist in the entire hospital. More for her skills than her personality, which may be hard to believe, haha!"

Eren felt himself sigh in relief. But relief of what? That Rivaille may have had a thing with one of these women? Now that it had all been cleared up, he felt genuinely stupid.

"And you're Eren, right? Nice to finally meet you! Rivaille talks about you a lot," she commented.

"Ah, thanks. You too…" Eren really wasn't one for a solid conversation with strangers. Even his dad straight-up told him at one point in his childhood that that quality combined with his short temper was why Eren didn't have many friends.

"Hurry up, Petra, the hot chocolate is getting cold," A male voice called from the living room. Eren looked over Petra's shoulder to see the couch filled with four men, three of whom were fixated on the TV. How had he not noticed the four men sitting on the couch the entire time? Probably because of Hanji. Well, at least Eren wasn't stuck between two women and Rivaille.

"Oh right, there's a pretty big company in Mr. Rivaille's house today, not just Ms. Hanji and I. Come on, they want to meet you, too!"

Eren followed Petra into the living room, where he was met with one judgmental glare from the person who called to Petra, and curious glances from the other three.

"That's Auruo Bossard," Petra said, pointing to the judgmental one still glaring at Eren. "He's a bit of an idiot but we have to deal with him anyway, since Mr. Rivaille apparently sees something in him that we don't."

"Hey," Auruo grumbled, turning his attention back to the TV. Eren noticed Auruo's features resembled Rivaille's in many aspects, down to the haircut and the scowling features, and he wondered just how much respect Auruo had for the man.

"These two are Gunther and Erd," Petra continued, motioning to the dark-haired man with a thick brow ridge and the blonde man rocking a pretty nice goatee. He reminded Eren of a clean-shaven Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. The two seemed friendlier than Auruo. "They're my fellow partners under Mr. Rivaille, and they're really nice. Way nicer than Auruo," Petra said his name with a look of disgust.

"And I'm Erwin," The tall, well-built man next to Erd smiled. He was very nice-looking, and Eren wouldn't have been surprised if he was a part-time model, because the man looked like he was coming straight out of a professional photoshoot. "I'm Rivaille's boss and manager. He's told us a lot about you."

Eren found himself blushing again. What exactly had Rivaille told his team? He never mentioned a word about them to Eren…

"Now that we're done with the introductions, can we start the fucking briefing on our work?" Rivaille came into the living room, followed by Hanji, who had a tray of snacks in her hand.

Looking pointedly at Eren, Rivaille frowned. It was probably the only eye contact they'd had in several days. "You should go in while we talk. This is shit for adults, not for brats like you."

Auruo made a noise of agreement.

Eren was about to gladly agree, when Hanji intervened.

"Oh why not? Just let him stay! Part of the reason why we came was to see him, after all."

Eren sputtered. "I, uh-"

Rivaille glared at Hanji. "The kid's busy,"

"Actually," Eren blurted. "Not really."

Damn it. Why did he have to let his stupid mouth run again?

Hanji made a noise of triumph. "See?" Rivaille stayed silent as he walked over near Erwin to sit down on the floor in front of the coffee table. Hanji followed suit, and Petra and Eren sat down on their end of the coffee table near Auruo.

The next two hours or so were a series of briefings and results from patients that week, and Eren found himself actually interested in the conversation. Mainly Erwin spoke, commending the team on some jobs but brutally criticizing in other aspects. His harsh tone when he criticized the team shocked Eren, as he could not believe such cruel, castigating words coming out of the mouth of someone who seemed so gentle, but by the looks of everyone else, this was pretty much a regular occurrence.

Hanji and Rivaille interjected sometimes, defending their positions, but accepting Erwin's comments nonetheless. Rivaille's team was taking notes with serious expressions, and Eren felt like he should have done the same. He honestly did not expect hospital work to be so detailed and demanding, if Rivaille's sudden leaves to emergencies weren't enough to signify that. Between sips of hot chocolate, Eren found himself awkwardly asking questions, to which Erwin gladly replied with a kind tone, a sharp contrast from his reprimanding one.

"Eren, Rivaille tells us you're in med school?" Erd asked after a bout of silence as the team took notes on the current subject.

"Ah, yes, I am." Eren replied, caught off-guard.

"Man, remember those days?" Gunther laughed, elbowing Erd in good nature.

"All I did was procrastinate and get fat off college pizza," Erd joked.

"It was so stressful! I failed my first semester because I slacked off," Petra sighed.

"You're lucky you have Mr. Rivaille to supervise you," Auruo rolled his eyes, making his disdain for Eren obvious. "Not that a brat like you deserves it anyway."

Even the way he talked reminded Eren of someone who was trying so hard to be like Rivaille, and Eren felt some jealousy in Auruo's words.

"Yeah, you don't seem that flabby for a college student, med, no less." Hanji smiled, leaning forward to stare at Eren's body some more. Good thing Eren had a sweater and loose jeans on. He would have been mortified if it were a few months ago, when the weather was sticky and he wore less clothes.

"Sorry, years of autopsies has made this one into a crazier bitch than she already was," Rivaille sipped his hot chocolate as his eyes scanned the papers in front of him.

Hanji didn't seem to care. "Man, I'd love to examine your body sometime!" she looked at Eren with googly eyes, effectively creeping him out.

"You're scaring him, Hanji," Erwin said cautiously.

"No, I'm not! Am I, Eren?" Hanji whipped her head to Eren, who couldn't bring himself to say yes.

"Well, kid, you don't have to answer," Rivaille said. "Because it's already 6:30 and I'm kicking all of you out."

His team looked relieved, but Hanji looked dejected.

"Next time, then okay?" she pleaded as she stood up. Erwin followed suit, and all of them put on their jackets and scarves but Rivaille and Eren.

Rivaille ushered all of them to the door, but Petra trailed behind. She grabbed at Eren's sleeve to get his attention before putting on her shoes, keeping her voice low.

"Please take care of Rivaille. He's not who everyone expects him to be; I mean, even I didn't expect such an esteemed doctor to be so cranky and…short," Petra chuckled. "But I can tell, he's really fond of you. And he talks about you a lot. So please, deal with him for all of us? We all respect him greatly, and it's rare to see him liking someone so much."

Eren stammered. "B-but I,"

"Come on, Petra, I'll walk you to your car," Rivaille called, checking his watch.

Petra jolted, hurrying to the door with her shoes half-on.

"I'll see you soon, Eren!" Petra smiled as she walked out with Rivaille, who shut the door behind him, leaving Eren pondering once more about the situation he was put into.

Rivaille was fond of him

Rivaille liked him.


	11. Mixed-Up Papers

It had been a week after Rivaille's coworkers came over, and Eren was more at a stalemate than ever.

All day, even during class, Petra's words repeated in his head: "Rivaille likes you a lot."

He liked him, and Eren was pretty sure now that what he felt for Rivaille was definitely more than a simple domestic partnership.

With these new feelings in hand, Eren was pretty sure he couldn't concentrate ever again. Every spacious moment he spent was about Rivaille, and he didn't even know if this was an actual thing or not.

Of course, it was even worse when Rivaille decided to show up at the college to ultimately give Eren the most embarrassing moment of his life.

X

"So then I was like, oh my god, no, Sasha, you're supposed to fuck the prostitute, not help her off the streets!"

The table was at their usual level of noise, discussing the rather terrible details of the adventures with the new Grand Theft Auto game Eren missed out on last week. He was pretty good-natured about it, though. Well, distracted was more like it. While Ymir was making fun of Connie and Sasha for not "getting on her level when it came to video games", Eren was pondering about his predicament with Rivaille.

Annie took notice of Eren's distraction, and gently nudged him. "You okay?"

Eren snapped out of his trance and looked at the shorter blonde, who looked at him with a funny expression. "I'm fine," he responded.

Bertholdt, next to Annie as usual, picked up the awkwardness surrounding Eren. "What's up, Eren? You've been quiet since the conversation started."

Reiner leaned over. "Is it 'cause you ditched us to be with Rivaille? I understand."

Eren rolled his eyes. That was hardly the problem now. Well, it was still the problem, but on a larger scale, he supposed. He chose to stay silent, however, as whatever he said was always used against him in the harshest ways possible. It wasn't just him with the crazy imagination; they didn't exaggerate when they said college students always had some type of screw loose.

Although, silence was interpreted in a far-fetched way, as well.

"So does that mean something happened?" Bertholdt asked, actually in disbelief. "Because, you know, for the most part, we were joking about you and him being a thing…"

"I-"

"Oh, shit, this is actual fucking gold!" Ymir cackled, leaning back on her chair. "Are you freaking serious? So you do like him? It's not just a fling, it's for real? Someone vine this moment, please."

At that note, Christa obediently pulled out her phone, wilting away when Eren gave her a disappointed glance.

Marco looked quite surprised, even more so than the rest of the table, who put aside their Grand Theft Auto in favor of Eren. "Really, Eren?"

Eren shrugged. He really didn't know himself, but he couldn't bring himself to be annoyed. Feelings of confusion occupied too much space already.

Connie raised an eyebrow. "But isn't he like…twice your age?" Sasha stepped on his foot under the table. "Ow!"

Ymir scoffed. "I saw this coming 3 fucking weeks ago. And with that, pay up, Reiner, Bertholdt." The pair discouragingly coughed up 20 dollars each, much to Ymir's pleasure and Eren's chagrin. They were betting on his love life for 3 weeks? He did have to admit, though, that took a lot of gambling on Ymir's part, so he had to give her credit for that.

"Language, Ymir," Christa reminded. The girl addressed rolled her eyes. Sasha giggled.

Reiner put away his wallet and looked pointedly at Eren, almost accusingly. Probably mad about the loss of twenty dollars. "You didn't even think to tell us this? Your buddies? Your friends?" For a moment there, he seemed like a hurt older brother offended that his younger sibling was hiding things from him. Eren almost felt guilty, but swallowed it away.

"Not everything is about Rivaille. Sorry, but my world doesn't revolve around him." Eren sighed finally, masking his true feelings under a superficial lie. Even he could hear how fake that sounded.

The table went silent.

Eren looked up. "What?" Surely it wasn't that big of a deal.

"So it's like that, huh brat?"

Eren whipped his head around.

"Uh."

There stood Rivaille, behind Eren with his trademark glare on his face, not quite towering over Eren but looming over him, in quite the menacing position. He had his doctor's uniform on, white coat and blue shirt and pants underneath, holding a stack of papers out to Eren. Even with his professional clothing on, Rivaille didn't look any less than perfect.

Eren unconsciously blushed.

How much of the conversation had Rivaille heard?

"Sorry to crash your little teenage discussion," Rivaille looked pointedly at Ymir, who looked defiant but seemed to keep herself in check in the presence of the higher-up. The rest of the table was as silent as a dead animal as Rivaille gave them a quick, disapproving scan. "But your little friend here accidentally took my fucking patient forms and left me this pile of crap he calls an essay."

Eren's eyes shot wide open as he dug through his bag to find that he had indeed taken some of Rivaille's patient forms to school.

"Oh man," Eren muttered, absolutely disoriented.

Rivaille tapped his foot impatiently as Eren pulled out the papers one by one. "What are you doing here? How did you get in?" Eren asked.

"I have my ways, and this is my break. I'm not too happy spending half of it looking for my fucking papers in the midst of sweaty teenagers, either." Rivaille snatched the papers out of Eren's hand, replacing them with Eren's essay. They were filled with red marks. Eren looked up in question. How was he supposed to hand something so unpresentable in? His English professor was a total bitch for neatness.

"I corrected all your grammatical errors, by the way. Saves the teacher some trouble. If you still have time during lunch, you might as well take your file out onto a computer and start editing."

Eren nodded tersely. Rivaille rolled his eyes.

"I'm working in late today, so don't bother waiting up for me, though I'm sure you will anyway, playing League or whatever." With that, Rivaille turned and started walking away.

"Thanks," Eren called to the shorter man, who continued walking briskly as if he didn't hear Eren.

As soon as Rivaille was out of sight, the table exploded in shocked admiration.

"So that's the famous Doctor Rivaille!" Christa exclaimed, looking like she just encountered a celebrity, which was pretty much the situation.

"He's so fucking short in person," Ymir sneered. "I wonder if he's even taller than Christa?"

"Don't be sour because he put you in your place, Ymir," Reiner chastised. Ymir held up her middle finger for the world to see.

"Damn, he's intimidating," Bertholdt seemed to be sweating nervously. Marco nodded in agreement, biting his nail.

"I thought I was gonna piss my pants," Connie admitted.

"His eyes had no souuul," Sasha cried quietly, in fear of Rivaille coming back and catching her say something so obscene.

Annie said nothing, but even her usual bored expression went from dull to slightly empowered.

"I guess they don't call him humanity's greatest hope for nothing," Reiner said, leaning back in his chair. He went stiff during Rivaille's short visit. "The man looks like he's seen a lot of shit."

"I approve, Eren!" Reiner reached over and clapped Eren on the back.

"What?!" Eren groaned. He was the only person still normal (except for the fact that his heart was beating 3000 times per second) after the intimidating presence of Rivaille, most likely due to the fact that he dealt with it every single day.

Christa smiled. "I think I saw some definite chemistry between you two."

Ymir shrugged. "Not a huge fan of romance, but you two definitely had something going on, namsaying?"

Sasha and Connie gave each other a knowing look. Marco smiled good-naturedly. "I understand why you like him, Eren. He's not that bad looking!" he put in for good measure.

"You weren't scared of him, either," Annie pointed out.

"That's just because we see each other…every day…" Eren trailed off at everyone's playful looks. They obviously "shipped" (as Sasha put it a few days ago) him and Rivaille, and there was nothing he could do about it. They read him like an open fucking book. There was no use in hiding it or questioning his feelings anymore.

It was official.

Rivaille liked him.

Eren returned those feelings.

"I-I'm fixing my essay!" Eren announced hurriedly, blushing and standing up from his seat. The others cheered him on, obviously thinking he was going to chase after Rivaille or something.

But he wasn't.

He needed a better approach.


	12. Confessions

"That will be $38.50," The friendly girl with two black pigtails at the cash register brought Eren back to reality.

He wasn't doing this.

He wasn't seriously doing this, right?

Why was he here?

At Barnes and Nobles?

Paying who seemed to be one of his college buddies $38.50 to buy three books that instructed how to ask your significant other out?

What was he thinking?

…He blamed it on Jean.

The girl, "Mina Carolina" her tag read, looked at Eren with a degree of pity in her eyes as she took the money from Eren and handed him his change. He was too busy trying to think of a legit excuse for these books to even wonder if he was in her English class or World History class.

She put in the books nicely in the bag, something her co-worker, Thomas, never did.

"Good luck," she said in a genuine tone as she handed the bag to Eren.

"Thanks," Eren managed to choke out. His heart seemed to be racing at about seventy miles per hour, and he was pretty damn sure his blushing face represented that exact emotion.

Eren almost wished he was a bit more…promiscuous, for lack of a better word, in high school. Being the social-obsessed loser he was, Eren never really had the chance to ask girls out. All through high school he was so obsessed with building up his own social life to even notice girls. And the rare instance that he did, he always got homewrecked by some other douchebag (like Jean) who girls went for back then (like Jean). Actually, it was still the same except now, the circumstances were totally different.

This time it was with a man.  
X  
That night, Eren studied like there was no tomorrow.

"I haven't seen you studying this hard since the boot camp," Rivaille's voice jerked Eren out of his study stupor. He quickly covered up his notes in the most natural way he thought was possible: slumping on top of them.

"Ha, well, yeah…important finals, and you know, that shit," Eren replied.

Rivaille walked closer. "What's the topic?"

"Humanities," Eren answered too quickly. There was a pause and Eren was actually scared Rivaille might come close enough to see the words on the page-

"Never was my strong suit," Rivaille shrugged and walked back out of Eren's room. Said male sighed loudly. That was a close call.  
X  
It was only halfway through the pile that Eren realized this was complete bullshit.

Who the actual fuck would rent out a fucking boat in this time and day just to propose a relationship that probably won't even last?

And who in their right mind even writes these kinds of books for a living?

It reminded Eren of those stupid Korean dramas Mikasa enjoyed watching when they were young.

If only he could put this much effort into his actual studies, he'd be passing college decently.  
X  
Eren watched a few episodes of a Korean drama Mikasa recommended to him not so long ago over facebook and realized it was all futile because he doubted Rivaille was a girl who can see ghosts and Eren definitely was not the CEO of a huge company that stretched across the small peninsula.  
X  
Nickelodeon was even worse.  
X  
And If Nickelodeon wasn't the worst of them all, National Geographic sure was rock bottom.  
X  
Eren picked up his phone, dialed the number, and braced himself for impact.

"Eren, it's 12 in the morning. What do you want?"

His normally cheery childhood friend sounded like an axe murderer as Eren chose his last resort: advice from Armin, who sounded as though he was asleep when Eren called. Which was probably the case.

"Hey, Armin, I know it's late and all, but I need your advice on something."

"What could you possibly need at 12 in the morning?"

"Umm, well. You see. Funny story, really! I…IkindawanttoaskRivailleoutbutIdon'tknowhowtosoca nyouhelpme-"

"Whoa, slow down, I can barely understand you. You want to ask someone out?"

Eren swallowed.

"Yeah."

"And is it so significant that you had to wake me up in the middle of the night to ask ME, of all people, for some stupid advice?"

"…Yeah."

"For some stupid LOVE advice that you know I'm probably going to never give because I've never been in love?"

"…Mmhmm."

Armin sighed very audibly.

"You're lucky I'm so nice, Eren."

"You're the best, buddy. So the problem is….I…kind of want to…uhh…ask Rivaille…"

"You want to WHAT?" Armin's voice came out shrill and judgmental, and Eren winced.

"I want to ask Rivaille out but I don't know how to, okay?"

Armin sighed. "And you're calling me about this, why?"

"Because you're smart?"

"Book smart! Eren, you know that I don't know anything about relationships. Or with guys, for that matter!"

"But I really like him, Armin, and I don't know what to do!"

"So why are you yelling at me? Go ask your friends what to do!"

Eren was kind of getting hungry. He stood up to walk out and get a late-night snack.

"Isn't the most generic way just to ask them out?" Armin asked after a short pause.

"I don't know. I've never done it before." Eren replied, rummaging through the fridge.

"I did, once. I got rejected."

"Oh yeah, I remember that girl! Didn't she have to repeat 7th grade?"

"Yeah, but that's not the point."

"Hmm, true. This is my problem, not yours."

"Eren, are you even sure you like him or is it just your time of the month?"

Eren sputtered. "I know for a fact that I like him very much!" he said, still looking for something in the fridge.

"I mean, maybe it's just because you've been living with each other and he's not half bad-looking."

"First of all, excuse you, he's very good-looking. And I know we've lived together for a few months now. But I think he's just so cool and beneath his harsh face there's probably a huge soft spot kind of like a teddy bear and he has the nicest colleagues ever though one of them creeps me out and one of them is basically a model, and he smells so nice, did I ever tell you that?"

"Uh…no, but go on."

"I love how neat he is despite him making it a living hell for me, because the house always smells so clean. We basically go on a movie date every Friday but in his house. He helped me pass one of my classes, and you know how hard of a job that is for anyone. He corrects my papers. He's platinum rank on League. I just…really think his hair is cool. His eyes are so pretty. His body is just so toned and fit for a doctor. He's so good at what he does. And he's such an awesome person and sometimes I wonder why I'm even here with someone who's basically like God-"

Eren closed the fridge door carefully to avoid noise. He stood there blankly, rethinking what he just said and patting himself mentally, because it wasn't that bad of a confession. He was proud of himself!

"And, yeah, that's basically it." He finished.

Eren turned with his winnings, a bowl of spaghetti that Petra gave Rivaille because she made too much. He felt like a load had been lifted off his chest, and maybe everything would be okay and he'd be able to confess in a year or two! He should have made Armin record that so he could memorize it and maybe one day tell it all to the person he liked face-to-face. Everything looked sunny and bright!

But wouldn't luck just have it?

Rivaille was standing right there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gosh guys, this chapter was really late, but thank you for being so patient! this is where all the good or bad stuffs start happening ;)  
> these weeks have been hectic for me as i waded myself through schoolwork and social life but im p okay now so thank you guys so much!


	13. Rejections

"Um."

Suddenly the bowl of spaghetti felt cold and heavy in Eren's hand as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Suddenly he couldn't bear to look Rivaille in the eyes. Suddenly he felt like he wanted to self-destruct. Suddenly he couldn't breathe.

How does one breathe?

In one, out two, in one, out two-

Rivaille coughed awkwardly, which left a shocked, confused, and flustered Eren scrambling to find an explanation. The air stilled between them as the two males looked anywhere but at each other. One minute seemed to prolong for an hour, which would have been fine by Eren had this not been the situation.

"I came because you were being loud," Rivaille finally offered, scratching his neck.

"Sorry." Eren blurted. He honestly didn't know what to say or what Rivaille expected him to say. Or what he wanted to say. Was he supposed to feel remorse, or embarrassment? Because he was feeling plenty of that at the moment.

Another bout of silence passed. The bowl of spaghetti was slowly warming from the room temperature combined with the heat from Eren's hands. Everything about Eren was burning in flames. His cheeks probably resembled the color of Mikasa's favorite scarf, and that was pretty damn red. An image of Taylor Swift's album came to mind. Why that, of all things?

"Just, uh, keep it down." Rivaille, for once, seemed at a loss of what to say. Actually, this had happened a total of two times with Eren; once with his baby videos, and now. What was he supposed to say to the kid after he basically heard what Eren had been thinking about him up until then?

Maybe this was a dream.

Eren seemed to be thinking the same way. Rivaille could see Eren pinching himself discreetly, still trying to balance the bowl of spaghetti in his hands.

Just as Rivaille was finally about to turn and leave for his room in a dazed manner, hoping to blame whatever was going on at the moment on lack of sleep and fatigue; however, Eren spoke up.

"Wait."

Rivaille didn't want to stop but he couldn't help himself. He turned halfheartedly toward the teen, sincerely wishing that his tired guise would work in getting Eren to stop while he was ahead.

"You…you're not angry with me?" Eren asked, appearing confused and in more of a daze than Rivaille was. Never mind. Rivaille almost forgot how persistent this little fucker was.

"Why would I be angry with you?" Rivaille asked. People always told him he'd be successful in life, because he knew how to keep a straight face. He was never more grateful for his trademark expression than now.

"Do you have anything you want to say?" Eren sounded almost desperate.

"What do you want me to say?"

"Can you please just take me seriously, just this one time?"

"I don't know how serious you want me to take you at twelve in the morning, Eren."

Eren swallowed.

"Don't try to pretend you didn't hear that just now."

Rivaille shrugged, seemingly nonchalant. "I'm not pretending to do anything."

"You really don't have any feelings…about this?" Eren gestured to himself, bowl secure in one arm. "Do you know how, how hard it is for me to even stand right now, much less hold this bowl or even, even do something as simple as talking to you?"

"Not my problem," Rivaille assumed an atmosphere of I-don't-give-a-flying-fuck, looking at his nails.

"Why don't you ever care?" Eren demanded. He realized this was heading in a completely destructive direction just like all their fights did, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

"I do care." Rivaille looked Eren straight in the eyes. The kid had the audacity to look away.

"Then why don't you freaking give me something to work with? SAY something!" Eren pleaded. Rivaille bit his lips.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Rivaille replied. Just as Eren was about to say something however, Rivaille turned and left briskly.

Eren couldn't find it in his will to stop him.

X

The next morning was beyond awkward.

It was even more awkward than that time where Eren spooned Rivaille in his fever by accident.

It was weird, though. It would have been less awkward to just completely avoid each other until time gradually blew out the tension. But instead, it was even more awkward with the two of them in the same room, trying to come up with a decent conversation but failing to do so.

Eren racked his brain for something to break the ice with. Rivaille seemed normal, but for all he knew, he was confused, too. Twiddling his thumbs, Eren stared at Rivaille, who was pouring milk into a bowl for some breakfast.

"The news said it'd snow today," Eren said. "10 degrees below zero."

Rivaille gave a grunt of acknowledgement.

"And there was a fire last night," Eren added. "It was pretty bad, and apparently five people were hurt real bad."

Rivaille nodded distractedly. Eren was desperate to drag some sort of reaction out of Rivaille, so he pressed on further.

"That probably means you have a lot to do, seeing as the casualties were pretty serious…"

Rivaille stopped answering altogether, so Eren continued babbling whatever nonsense would bring some emotion out of the steely man.

"How does a fire even start in this cold weather? Did you know that the building was built in 1908, and it was passed down that family's line for generations-"

"Eren, stop." Rivaille sighed.

Eren shut his mouth obediently. His plan of acting stupid just so that Rivaille would correct him like he always did failed.

Rivaille dragged his chair out and sat on it, seemingly exasperated. He more or less slammed his cereal down and folded his hands across the table, looking Eren straight in the eyes.

"Listen, I hate beating around the bush, so I'll just say it now. I know you think you've been all sneaky these days, trying to hide your feelings, but in truth, you were about as discreet as a sore thumb. I know you mean well, you're a good kid. And if we met in different circumstances, I would have seriously considered, but… I'm just not ready for a relationship right now…as stupid and cliché as it sounds."

Eren's mouth couldn't help but hang open. Upon this realization, he closed it again, still gawking at Rivaille.

"But…" Eren started, only to be interrupted by Rivaille's cold words.

"I'm sorry, Eren," Rivaille concluded. "I can't return your feelings."

Eren was dumbfounded.

Did he just get rejected?

"Why?" Eren asked. That was all he could think of.

"In all honesty, you can do so much better than me," Rivaille added for good measure.

"But I want you! Why can't you understand that? Am I not good enough for you? I don't get it!"

Rivaille kept his mouth shut and his eyes forceful. Eren seemed to be holding back tears, judging from his scrunched-up face and slightly shaky voice. He felt bad, but he meant what he meant. He just wasn't ready.

"Can't you just give me a reason?" Eren begged. Reduced to begging. Way to go, Eren Jaegar.

Rivaille stayed silent.

"I…you know what, never mind. You don't like me the way I like you. And I'm late as it is." Eren seemed like he wanted to shout more words, but his conscience stopped him from doing so. He really had a lot to say, but he just couldn't get his emotions out when he felt worse than a fucking paramecium.

When Eren put on his shoes and slammed the door behind him, Rivaille didn't say anything.

Even when he heard the elevator ding, Rivaille didn't move.

He simply let him go.

Burying his face into his palms, Rivaille heaved a great sigh.


	14. Caustic

"You look like death," Hanji said, cheerily and like always, painfully oblivious to the tense atmosphere around her. All of Rivaille's squad looked up from their table with fearful looks in their eyes. Ever since the confrontation that morning, which no one knew about, Rivaille was in the worst mood possible. Every little thing his squad did incorrectly, things he normally softly chastised them on, every single thing led to a fierce lashing on his part. His mood only worsened when Hanji bounced in, uncalled for as she always was, with a blissfully happy smile on her stupid face.

At the moment, they were all seated around the circular conference table in the room they always met in for briefings and discussions. The room the crisp white with nothing but the table, chairs, a refrigerator, and a window. Auruo always jokingly called it The Asylum because it was pretty much spotless due to Rivaille's efforts to keep up appearances for random, unplanned Department of Health visits by Nile Hawk, basically the hospital's sworn enemy who tried to bring them down on every little thing possible. But every checkup, they came back stronger.

However, it more or less felt like an actual asylum now, and Rivaille was the warden.

Petra tried giving Hanji a warning glance, but it was futile. Hanji just kept on going.

"Erwin told me about the…thing between you and Eren," Hanji mentioned, slamming papers down in front of Rivaille with a lighthearted smile on her face. Rivaille, in turn, gave her his worst death glare possible. His squad looked up in silent curiosity. Lately, anything remotely having to do with Eren and Rivalle interested them.

"None of your business. Now get out, I have to finish briefing these idiots on today's work," Rivaille cut her off dryly.

Hanji rolled her eyes. "That explains why you're pissier than usual. But do me a favor and try not to take it out on your team?" Hanji pleaded earnestly before bouncing out as quickly as she came in. Rivaille's squad was left staring down at their papers, trying their best not to make the situation worse than it was.

Rivaille heaved a huge sigh, perking the team up. They were all obviously uncomfortable and fidgeting. This wasn't the first time they were subjected to such cold treatment by Rivaille; numerous times before he had woken up on the wrong side of the bed, he'd be a bit more cranky than usual. But they learned to get used to it, and over time they learned to distinguish when to fool around and when not to. However, today's anger was on a far more intense level than any of them could have ever went through, and in all honesty, they were at a loss of actions to take.

Just as everything seemed hopeless, Petra spoke up, breaking the silence much to the happiness of the rest of the team. Her fellow teammates looked at her in awe as she cleared her throat.

"Um, so onto the autopsy of the Jane Doe from today's morning run, we found a small tumor in her brain that must have been overlooked by a monthly checkup, so we're getting to work on her and who she is-"

"Then get to work on that instead of just telling me about it. What's that going to do, bring her back to life?" Rivaille interrupted her coldly. Petra wilted. Auruo seemed conflicted whether to console Petra or agree with Rivaille. She sat down, and Auruo gave her a slight, sorry pat on her thigh.

Erd coughed. "We need your permission to get a warrant to search for her and then her belongings, though, you need to forward this to Mr. Smith…" Gunther looked bewildered at his friend for challenging Rivaille like that, but stayed wide-eyed and silent.

Rivaille glared at Erd. Erd started sweating unconditionally. It was obvious he knew he had signed his own death warrant, but he was too late to revoke his destiny.

"Permission granted, now leave." Everyone looked relieve as soon as those words escaped Rivaille's mouth. He looked like he wanted to chew Erd's head off, but thankfully he didn't. It was like they couldn't get out of the prison fast enough.

Rivaille hung back in his seat and slumped. He honestly felt bad about putting his poor team through all that venting, but he couldn't help it.

What the hell was he supposed to make of Eren's confession?

God, when he just let him go like that, he wanted to punch himself.

There were a million things he could have said in that moment, to make him stay, to make him say more, to make him say everything that was on his mind, but instead he opted for the easy way out- to just ignore him.

He couldn't deny that the kid was attractive. Sure, he got angry easily, and maybe he was a bit hot-headed, sure, and even kind of on the dumb side; the kid literally knew nothing about college, and his priorities were on par with that of a an elementary schooler's. But overall, he was adorable. Good lord, did he actually use that degrading adjective? Eren was doing wonders to his mentality, and not in the good way.

He also couldn't deny the fact that he HAD felt something spark between the two on numerous occasions inside the house. Even within the seemingly mundane conversations between the two exchanged on a daily basis, through "boot camp", through movie nights, Rivaille was certain there was always more than one thing going on between them

But he couldn't just overlook the fact that they had a significant age difference, and though Eren was legal, doing adult things with him, the very thoughts made him want to douse himself with holy water and apologize to Grisha immediately. But just hypothetically, he pretended the age gap wasn't such a huge deal. What about everything else? Would he have to provide for Eren? He already pretty much did, but taking into consideration a wedding ring and all that jazz…

Why was he thinking about a wedding? What the fuck?

But most of all, Rivaille knew what was really keeping him back. Just reminiscing on it killed him a bit inside, but he really wished he could have explained to Eren more clearly what the situation was. Truthfully, he still wasn't over his breakup a few years ago with Erwin, who had found a significant other at that time and pretty much just used Rivaille as an excuse to conceal his true feelings. At the time, Rivaille was willing to do anything for Erwin, even knowing the cold, hard truth, because he was so fixated on the idea that Erwin would realize that Rivaille was his true lover, and not whoever he was seeing. Essentially, he was blind. He let himself get used to the point where he was just tired of it all, but even then he still had hope that Erwin would come around. Of course, he never did. Rivaille learned that the hard way when he walked into his own apartment complex to find Erwin's arm around another woman, who looked surprised when Rivaille kicked them out, not even bothering to hide his disappointment. The look of bitterness on his face must have been evident, because he and Erwin did not speak for a long time after that. A year? More? He couldn't remember, but they eventually made up over a nice drink and the fact that the woman was a gold digger and left Erwin as soon as she realized he had actual feelings. At that point, Rivaille couldn't care less if Erwin wanted him back, and he assumed it to be true the other way around, as well. Both were on a diplomatically friendly relationship, and had each others' backs; they were far from being best buddies again, but they certainly had no more animosity between them.

The very fact that he was looking back on this made him sick to his stomach.

Rivaille sighed and folded his hands in front of him. Looking back, he felt so stupid. So, so stupid and foolish and naïve. On that day, he vowed never to get into a relationship ever again because it just wasn't worth the pain. But Eren kept pulling him back. He hated it. It grossed him out that he was so weak when it came to matters like these, yet he could perform major surgeries without batting an eye.

Rivaille's head was seriously starting to ache. He reached for his phone to text Erwin that he was going to take a five-minute break, but he knew then that he didn't have any intention of coming back until way later, and so did Erwin. He'd take a walk around a park or something, maybe even buy one of those Starbucks lattes, anything to get his mind off.

However, a glance on his phone dictated otherwise.

Hanji was calling him.

Rivaille groaned, debating whether to receive the call or not. Well, what the hell.

"What do you want," he grumbled.

"Rivaille, it's terrible! Did you hear?" Hanji's voice seemed more frantic and endangered than usual. Rivaille knew Hanji wouldn't sound like that without a reason. He straightened up.

"What's wrong?" he asked. Perhaps a patient had died or something.

But he was not expecting to hear what she would say next.

"Eren's school is on fire," Hanji gasped.

Rivaille froze. What?

"Rivaille? Rivaille, are you still on?! Eren's school is on fire, apparently two kids were playing a prank in the chemical room and caused an explosion- Rivaille! Are you listening!"

Rivaille really wasn't. As Hanji rambled on, he was making a run straight to Eren's school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merry christmas guys! <3


	15. Caustic, part 2

Rivaille couldn’t think of any other time he’d ran so fast or frantically.

“Eren’s school is on fire.” Hanji’s sudden words kept ringing in his head as he shoved his way through crowds in the street. “You didn’t hear?” No, he didn’t fucking hear, he was too busy self-lamenting his own life to even notice what was going on around him. “Apparently two kids were playing a prank in the chemical room.” Well, whoever the unfortunate souls were, if they made it out of the school alive, they wouldn’t be alive for long if Rivaille had anything to say in the matter.

He actually wanted to cry.

What was holding his tears back, he didn’t know; it was probably out of habit from countless years of deaths in the ER and him being forced to deal with the grieving families. He thanked the higher powers for the ability to not lose it in public, but just the thought of Eren even remotely scorched or harmed in any way made him want to throw up.

What was actually a ten, fifteen-minute walk between the two buildings seemed like an eternity as Rivaille dodged traffic and muttered hundreds of apologies for not just bumping into people, but to Eren, who may have been burned beyond recognition at this point.

He tried to calm himself down. Maybe the part of the school that caught on fire wasn’t the one Eren was in. Maybe Eren was outside fooling around with his friends, or skipping class. For once, Rivaille wished Eren was the bad student in this.

He never even got to hear him out.

Hell if he was never going to. The kid had better be fucking alive or…

Well, what good is a threat if the person is dead?

Rivaille finally rounded the corner to the building, and sure enough, a mob of spectators as well as policemen and firefighters and even ER medics were already at the scene, clamoring and shouting things that really didn’t matter to Rivaille because all he cared about was Eren being safe.

He cursed his short height because he couldn’t see behind all the stupidly tall peoples’ heads. Throughout the crowd, though, he could hear various things like, “what a tragedy…”, or “this is terrible…” Well, no fucking shit it’s terrible, why not point out even more things that are painfully obvious?

Rivaille must have come just in time to witness the coming out of the students, because the firefighters were marching into the crowd from the gates, parting the Red Sea, and laying injured people down on cots. Rivaille gave one quick glance and determined that most of these people weren’t hurt severely; a mild burn here and there but nothing third-degree. But then again, these were probably the students not that far away from the scene, getting injured because they were simply in the vicinity. The real survivors had yet to be found.

Rivaille bit his nails, a nervous, disgusting habit he’d developed a long time ago, thought he’d stashed away, but had a tendency of coming back in times of extreme stress. The only other time this happened was when he was younger, a newbie, still better than most others but naïve, and at risk of probation for insulting a higher-up patient who didn’t like sassy attitudes, especially Rivaille’s. Erwin pulled some strings to cover up the incident but Rivaille couldn’t forget the amount of stress he suffered from, knowing that one wrong move could destroy his own career when he was just starting to solidify it.

That was what he felt now. That same fear and anxiety.

After a couple hundred centuries later, the real injuries started coming out. He could tell from the way people averted their eyes and clasped their mouths with their hands in horror. He didn’t even have to observe for a long time to know that these people were in the direct range of the explosion, or somewhere very near it, judging from the scorched, burning, second-and third-degree burns scattered around the bodies. They weren’t life-threatening, as they were mostly focused on one part of the body for a majority of these students, but definitely, skin grafts were to be needed. However, even he had to cast his eyes down when he saw a freckled kid with literally half his body sizzling like a steak. Upon closer inspection from pushing away horrified people, he recognized the student as one of Eren’s friends, the same one he saw with Eren at his lunch table when he found Eren’s drafts in his folder.

Rivaille’s eyes widened. The kid seemed unconscious, and his instincts kicked in.

“Move aside, I’m a doctor,” he ordered the civilians and medics as the firefighters rushed him onto a cot. He knew they believed him because of the fact that he ran all the way to the university in his doctor’s coat. He gave a look-over, felt for a pulse, which was faint but there, demanded the kid be sent as first priority, and rushed the ambulance away. He looked into the distance, where he saw more firefighters bring out more injured students, and the crowd looking at Rivaille like he was a fucking savior, but he wasn’t, because all he could do at the moment was pray that Eren was safe. Nothing else really mattered.

He continued belting various orders to the medics and firefighters, all the while hoping Eren came out with as little injury as possible, or maybe none at all. Maybe it could be a cliché movie scene where, as he was distracted, Eren would come out, and everything would be fine, and Rivaille would even let him finish his confession.

By then, quite a line of panicked students from the university had emerged, coughing from the smoke but mostly intact. Amongst the crowd Rivaille could pinpoint a few brats he remembered Eren hung out with. They all looked terrified. A tall, sweaty kid in a black sweater who looked to be on the verge of tears was gripping onto a shorter but seemingly fitter blonde guy who looked way too old for his age. The shortest of the trio, a blonde girl in a white hoodie, looked distressed, an expression Rivaille knew was rare for someone like her. A short, blonde girl was being consoled on the side by the snarky bitch who got on his nerves when he visited Eren, an action far too unfamiliar that could only be brought out by something as tragic as this. Another girl with a brown ponytail who reminded him of Hanji without glasses was gripping the hand of a bald kid, both of them tearing up silently. Out of joy or sorrow, he couldn’t really know.

Okay. The explosion was certainly something to be scared at, but where was Eren?

Rivaille knew he was being a son of a bitch for caring only about one specific person but he couldn’t bring himself to care about morality. He regretted so many things, praying to who knows what to turn back time so he could fix things, maybe even prevent Eren from going to school that day in favor of a nice talk or who knows, hell, maybe even a fucking date.

Anything but this.

“Doctor Rivaille! Is that you? It’s you!” Rivaille whipped his head to the unknown voice, only to find a short, terror-stricken blonde boy, followed by Eren’s group of friends, making their way toward him.

“Oh my God, it’s really you! I…you…do you know where Eren is?!” The kid seemed even more perplexed and shocked than Rivaille, if that was even possible.

Rivaille coughed, knowing that his voice would come out shaky and not at all like who he actually was. “No. I thought he was with you kids.”

“H-He was. But it happened so quickly, I can’t…” The kid fell to his knees, no longer being able to support himself. He wasn’t bothering to hide his trembling at all, even crying somewhat and sniffling. “We were all in study hall, even Eren, because, because of a huge test we would have had later today, when we heard screaming and running. Thankfully, we weren’t in the general area of the fire itself, but the smoke got to us, a-and, I don’t even know, one second we were all reading and joking around and the next…” He started breaking down. The fit blonde guy patted his shoulders, offering silently to help him up.

The stoic but distressed hoodie girl spoke for her friend. “The smoke spread quickly. We weren’t in the area of the explosion itself but because of the school’s structure, everything is connected, and the halls are narrow and they made it easier for the smoke to spread, so by the time people started running, we were caught in the smoke. We all made a run for it but in the smoke, we lost Eren. I remember yelling at him to hurry up, but he turned back for some reason. I couldn’t do anything.”

Rivaille felt rage well up in his chest. Why couldn’t she fucking do anything? She could have grabbed Eren, knocked some quick sense into him and told him to run. Nothing was making any damn sense whatsoever. Was the explosion that bad, to have thick, blinding, suffocating smoke spread that quickly throughout the building they were in? What kind of school is structured that way anyway?

But he couldn’t let his emotions get the best of him. Not now.

“You guys said you inhaled smoke, right? Get on an ambulance and get that checked out immediately.” Rivaille waved them away, much to their surprises.

“No! We need to help look for Eren!” The short blonde girl spoke up, something Rivaille didn’t expect. She looked shy and withdrawn, who knew she’d be the first to go against?

“What you need to do is get to the hospital now, because if you’ve inhaled that much smoke, you could be at risk for lung cancer when you grow older, and I’m assuming that’s not what you want?” Rivaille said in a patronizing voice. They’d just get in his way.

“Hey, don’t give her shit because she cares and you don’t. Eren was telling us about what happened between you two. You don’t have any more of a right to him than us.” The tall bitch retorted protectively. Rivaille glared at her.

“For your information, that has nothing to do with the situation right now-“

The fit guy next to the sweaty one interrupted him. “Yeah, he was really upset. Maybe you’re the reason why he went back.”

Rivaille knew he had a dark look on his face, because everyone shut up immediately.

“I don’t need any more casualties on my hand. Get your bratty asses onto an ambulance, now.” He demanded. “That is an order.”

The kids still looked defiant, even the sobbing ones. This was not good.

“Now!” Rivaille raised his voice, something that always worked with stubborn patients and that he hoped would work now. Thankfully, it did, because it shocked them out of their defiance into reality. They probably knew they couldn’t do much from the start; it wasn’t like the firefighters and the police would let them back into the school like they had dying wishes.

But then again, that was the same for Rivaille, as well.

Eren’s friends started shuffling their ways to the ambulances, which just kept coming and coming for the injured. Other students who inhaled smoke were getting in, as well. The first responders were actually responding this time.

But where the hell was Eren?

Rivaille needed a moment to think, to get this all straightened out. Why the hell wasn’t Eren coming out? Even the severely injured were coming out. Sure, more people were being dragged out by the firefighters but these people weren’t that injured or afflicted in the least. Eren’s group of friends had no idea that their freckled friend was burnt halfway, or where Eren was. It couldn’t be that Eren had caused the explosion, he was with his friends when it happened. Could it be that Eren was in too deep to get out?

If what that girl said was true, why the hell did he go back?

“I’m making a round,” he said to any medic who cared. Everyone was busy running around and trying to make sense of the situation like he was. Rivaille quickly dashed to see other parts of the school from where he was, because he knew the entire university was way too large to circle, making sure no other place was unscathed with a quick look. Sure enough, the explosion only occurred in one building, which was great; less casualties. After the round, he came back to find less people on cots and more people relatively okay, a good sign.

But no matter where he looked, there was no sign of Eren.

Rivaille collapsed to the floor, onto his knees, just like Eren’s friend did but minus the crying. He hadn’t been this shocked in a long while. It was like this plus everything else that had happened ever was piling up at once, and the fact that Eren wasn’t coming out triggered the onslaught of emotion. He probably looked ridiculous for just slumping to the floor like that, but then again, when did he ever care? He could hear medics asking frantically if he was okay, but his grave expression probably spelled the answer out for them.

He was at a danger for tears once again. This time, under the silence of the dead and injured, he was really about to cry. Fuck. This was not good. What the hell was wrong with him?

“Eren,” he breathed. No one could hear him, and he was fine by that.

“Eren,” he tried again. As if calling his name would magically bring him out.

“Fuck, Eren, where are you?” Rivaille buried his hands into his face. He was sure that at this point, all dignity was lost. People were probably wondering what the hell had happened. All the words that were lost were coming back and surfacing as raw emotion and regret, to the point where Rivaille was just done with it all. He hated Eren for leaving him like this. He hated Eren for disappearing. He hated Eren for never confessing everything. He hated Eren for pulling him back into this void that could never be fulfilled. He hated Eren for breaking off from the group to go to god knows where. He hated Eren’s smile, his face, his body, his personality, his entire existence. He hated Eren so much.

“Fuck,” he muttered. This wasn’t good. He was really going to cry, in front of everyone, wasn’t he-

“Rivaille!”

His heart stopped as dusty, sooty arms quickly and anxiously enveloped him from his back. The familiar tone of urgency and desperation was so obviously Eren’s. The smell of burning smoke, not so much. But the tenderness and shock and everything, everything in that moment was Eren, and Rivaille had to turn to see if it was actually him and not a ghost.

“Ere-?” Rivaille didn’t have time to observe his face as Eren practically squeezed him back into a crushing hug.

“Oh God, you’re okay, you’re okay Rivaille. I thought saw you in the crowd, injured, I thought I saw you, but it wasn’t you, but here you are, because you’re okay,” Eren wasn’t making any sense. He was breathless and probably having delusions from the amount of smoke he must have inhaled, but it was Eren nonetheless.

“You stupid fuck, let go of me,” Rivaille ordered. But Eren seemed to have no intention of doing so. “We look ridiculous, let go of me.”

Eren loosened his grip but still kept Rivaille at arm’s length. He then hugged him again, despite Rivaille’s protests.

“No, I thought you were one of the injured- did you see Marco, oh my God, no one saw him but his lecture room was right next to the explosion I think, and he always sits near the walls- is he okay? Are you okay?” Eren pulled away to examine Rivaille’s face, turning it this way and that. But Rivaille’s face wasn’t the one he should have been worried about.

“Eren, you look like shit,” Rivaille gasped, cupping Eren’s face and examining it. It was layered with soot and dust, a few burn marks from flame sparks (most likely), worry creased into his eyes, and there was no way that you could possibly describe Eren as attractive in this moment, but to Rivaille, he was everything.

“Why the hell did you go back, you idiot?!” Rivaille demanded. Eren looked confused for a minute, but he seemed to remember why.

“My draft,” he said, thinking back. “My draft, it was in study hall but I left it there and I had to get it back.”

“Why the fuck would you do that?!” Rivaille didn’t care if the entire world could hear him, Eren was so stupid. “If it’s just a fucking draft, it’s saved on your goddamn laptop!”

“But it’s yours,” Eren looked scared. Rivaille must have been harsher than usual for him to look so scared. “I mean, it’s mine, but it has your corrections on it. It’s the first thing you ever really did for me, and when I realized I left it there, I didn’t think, I’m so sorry, Rivaille, I’m so, so, so, sorry, I’ll never do that again-“

But it was Eren’s turn to be cut off as Rivaille positively crushed him into an angry hug.

“Shut the fuck up,” Rivaille ordered.

“What-“

“Shut the fuck up.” Really, Rivaille threw away any fuck he ever gave about public image as he kissed Eren desperately.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow this was supposed to be uploaded wayyy later but after seeing the way the last chapter killed you guys, i couldn't bear to keep you waiting any longer. <3  
> happy early new years' guys! thanks for always sticking with me and kudo-ing-slash-commenting this little story of mine. it brings me giddiness whenever i check my email, i swear, y'all make my day. :)  
> you are all amazing and yass stuffs are finally happening


	16. Reparations

The hospital was in chaos.

When Rivaille walked in, everything was in confused shambles. All the medical interns and hands available were setting out beds and rooms for the shocked and injured. Third-degrees were immediately taken to an ER. The freckled kid, when Rivaille asked, was currently undergoing major surgery, and his family was notified and flying in as soon possible. Rivaille asked to be the surgeon, but to no avail; it was too late to go in.

Rivaille walked around, somewhat in a daze and not knowing what to do, which was new for him, but he didn’t even really understand what was going on outside of the hospital walls. He could feel himself flushed and angry-looking, but in reality, that was all he was actually feeling.

Eren promptly fainted after the sudden kiss at the scene, causing Rivaille to go into a mini-panic and demanding that Eren be taken to the hospital immediately, much to the surprise of the medics. He had no idea which floor or room Eren was in, but he hoped he was okay. Hopefully it was just the overabundance of smoke in his lungs that caused him to faint, and not some terrible injury that Rivaille might have missed.

“Rivaille!” Rivaille turned to the source of his name, only to find Hanji and Erwin running towards him.

“You should have warned me before you went AWOL!” Hanji gripped him into a tight hug, an action Rivaille cringed at. “I was so worried you’d fainted or something, but I checked The Asylum and you’re safe! That’s all that matters!”

Erwin sighed. “You have to tell me before you go anywhere, Rivaille. Thankfully you were at the scene of the disaster, but who knows where you would have went?”

Rivaille rolled his eyes. “I’m fine, thanks,” he said as he pried Hanji off of him. There was no time for sentimental reunions when lives were at stake. “Besides that kid with half his body burnt off, were there any other serious injuries?”

Erwin nodded. “About five others came in with serious injuries; not as serious as Marco Bodt’s, the boy with the half-body burn, but they’ll definitely need skin transplants.”

Rivaille sighed. Those six kids were unlucky enough to be so near the explosion that parts of their bodies were burnt off. One side of him was grateful that only these six students were hurt terribly, but six lives were almost ended, one of them at critical stake, because of…

…of a stupid prank that Rivaille still had not heard the details of.

“Who the fuck were the idiots who pulled this prank in the first place, and are they here?!” Rivaille immediately let loose his anger he was bottling in for the sake of the students earlier at the school. He couldn’t hear Hanji trying to calm him down as he stormed off to anywhere, away from all this chaos.

Erwin followed suit. “Police are still investigating. Obviously the students who pulled the prank in the first place aren’t going to turn themselves in; if they escaped in one piece, anyway.”

“Hanji, how did you know that there were two kids involved?” Rivaille yelled over the clamor in the background.

“Witnesses getting interviewed. Some students knew what was going on, they just didn’t want to give away their friends…” Hanji trailed off at Rivaille’s worsening glare. “Apparently it was supposed to be all fun and games, just as a blackmail or whatever, but they didn’t put in the correct amounts of chemicals.”

“Who are the witnesses?” Rivaille asked, thoroughly angered. “I want the police to investigate them effective immediately. Or are they here? If they are, don’t even bother helping them.”

“I don’t know! I don’t know who they are! Erwin got a call from the first responders and they were the ones who talked to the students, and now they’re gone, I don’t know!” Hanji replied, genuinely confused. Erwin put a hand on Rivaille’s shoulder to keep him from asking any more questions, because he knew Rivaille was a time bomb waiting to explode.

“That’s enough, Rivaille. Go tend to the patients on the second floor.”

“But-“

“You don’t think the police are doing all they can? This is an order, Rivaille.”

Rivaille was about to retort with something that would tell off Erwin and give him an excuse to go look for where Eren was at the same time, but one stern look from Erwin prompted him to do what he was told.

Rivaille took the stairs, because the elevator was filled with people trying to transfer cots from one floor to the other. As he walked up the stairs, he thought about how extremely lucky Eren was, how extremely lucky he himself was. Now that he thought about it, the whole panicky, worried mood he was in didn’t suit him at all and he found it embarrassing somewhat, but he absolutely did not regret it. His slow venture of the stairs gave him time to truly think of the consequences of what he did. He hadn’t even thought about anything as he effectively smashed his mouth against Eren’s desperately, in all honesty. He was just so glad Eren was safe. He wanted to be planning a future, not a funeral.

But that didn’t stop him from freaking out about what he’d done prior to Eren’s fainting.

Just that tiny detail about him kissing him, you know?

Rivaille’s stomach churned and suddenly he didn’t want to see Eren anymore. Honest to God, it was an in-the-moment kind of action that he didn’t mean to take but he did anyway. He wondered if Eren would even remember what happened, he seemed to be in a deranged state either way.

Just as he arrived on the second floor, where all the non-serious patients were crammed into, Petra collided with him, carrying a bunch of documents and papers and looking like a tornado of orange hair.

Rivaille rubbed his shoulder, where Petra hit him.

“Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry!” Petra looked up, realizing who she bumped into. She looked worried and frenzied at the same time.

Rivaille gave her a glare, irrationally angry for some reason at the fact that they collided. “What the hell are you doing, Petra? Watch where you’re going, that could have been a patient, for all we know.”

Petra seemed upset as she muttered an apology and speed-walked to wherever she was heading to. Rivaille felt terrible immediately and made a mental note to apologize to her for both his unwarranted outbursts that day.

“Wow, rude much, and to your own coworkers!” Rivaille’s eye twitched as he turned toward the source of the heckling, and saw Eren’s friends crammed into beds in a room meant to house ten patients at a time. Oh. Snarky bitch. It seemed like Eren’s friends were all dumped into the same room, each on their own beds but jittery.

“Ymir, don’t be rude,” The tiny blonde girl next to her tried to keep snarky bitch in check as she reached over to ruffle her hair, offering a quick “Sorry, Christa.” that didn’t seem genuine at all. Christa looked as if she were used to this treatment by now.

“Reiner, pay up, told you Eren would survive.” Rivaille couldn’t believe his eyes as he witnessed Reiner, the fit blonde guy, shake his head at Ymir with a scornful glare for even mentioning the fact that they gambled over Eren’s life, whether it be to lighten the mood or not, in front of the person Eren lived with. Ymir took the hint and shrugged quietly. That was a bitch move, not even gonna lie, Rivaille thought.

“Doctor Rivaille!” The short blonde kid with the Dora the Explorer haircut struggled to get up from the bed, but he was still shaking. Probably from trauma. “Are you okay? Is Eren okay? Did you find him?”

All of Eren’s friends directed their attention towards Rivaille with anxious eyes. Even snarky bitch and hoodie girl looked worried. Normally Rivaille would have kept them waiting by saying something wisely ominous, but he wasn’t really in the place to do so. He nodded.

“Yeah, he’s fine.” A collective sigh went around the room as the students slumped back into their beds, knowing their friend was okay.

The fit, blonde guy gave a short laugh, and reached across the bed to lightly punch the sweaty kid from earlier. “See, Bertholdt, I told you he’d be fine. He’s a dumbass but he’s a strong one.”

Bertholdt gave a nervous chuckle. “I guess. I was just so worried when Annie said he ran off in the opposite direction.”

Annie, the stoic blonde with the hoodie rolled her eyes, slumping into her hospital bed. “I almost feel dumb for being so worried. He’s like, immortal.”

Rivaille had to agree with that.

The Hanji lookalike seemed like she was going to pass out from relief. “I can’t believe I was so scared!” she exclaimed. The bald kid next to her agreed as they shared some crackers from the hospital. When and where they’d managed to find a damn vending machine in this chaos, Rivaille would have never guessed.

“Well, good news is, you’ll all be discharged soon since you haven’t been injured badly.” Rivaille said, much to the happiness of the kids. They started chattering amongst one another. Then he remembered Marco Bodt.

“Um. And I’d hate to be the one to break it to you, but…” He watched as everyone’s moods turned somber once again, curious yet apprehensive as to what Rivaille was about to say.

As if she read his mind, Ymir asked in a low voice, “…Has anyone seen Marco?”

The idea seemed to click to everyone at the same time as they looked with horrified eyes to Rivaille. God damn it, he hated being the one everyone looked forward to. They weren’t going to get anything positive out of him, and he felt like shit, too.

“I…” Rivaille couldn’t bring himself to say it. No matter how he looked at it, this part was always the hardest- to see dear friends and family members break down at the prospect of their loved one in critical condition, or even dead. Surgeries were mundane compared to the news.

“He’s been injured very badly,” Rivaille settled for a sugarcoated explanation. After all, Dora the Explorer looked as if he would have fainted from shock if any more trauma was piled up on him. “According to Eren, he always sits near the wall where the explosion happened, and…”

He didn’t have to finish his sentence. Everyone was frozen in shock.

“D…does that mean…” Hanji lookalike stopped stuffing her face. The bald kid next to her squeezed her arm and shook her head, to keep the word from being said.

Rivaille shook his head. “He’s not…dead, per se, just in an extremely critical condition.”

A moment of silence passed over before the kids started shouting protests.

“What in God’s name are we doing here, then?” Reiner demanded, getting up from his cot but was equally as shaky as everyone else.

“Sit down, Reiner,” Annie warned as Reiner obeyed reluctantly and sat down.

“Can we visit him? Can we help in any way?” Christa pleaded, appalled at the fact that they left their dear friend alone in a crucial time of need.

“This is all our fault, if only we had checked…” Hanji lookalike was tearing up.

“No, Sasha, it wouldn’t have made a difference either way,” Bertholdt mumbled sadly. Sasha looked hugely upset and leaned on the bald kid for comfort.

Rivaille nodded. “He’s right. What’s important is that you are all safe. We have our best medical team on his case, so have faith in us and wait.”

The kids stayed silent and somber as Rivaille took one last glance at them and left. Well, that went well. He only scared a bunch of college kids into complete shock, that wasn’t so bad. Could have been worse.

Rivaille heaved an enormous sigh as he tried to get the kids out of his head. He’d dealt with countless people not expecting bad news before, and he sure as hell could do it now. But there was a reason it was usually Petra or Erd who broke the news to grieving families and friends. Rivaille wasn’t so good with words when it came to grave situations.

Why did he feel worse than he needed to? These kids honestly weren’t that special. Except that they probably felt hella guilty of leaving their friend behind, even though it wasn’t really their faults. Rivaille had dealt with high government officials more than a couple times in his life, but he didn’t feel any remorse when he dished out bad news to them and their loved ones. But that was probably due to his personal vendetta against rich, spoiled, privileged people. These kids were just kids, for lack of a better word. Just college buddies all having a good time until some assholes decided to pull a fucking prank. And they were probably were in tears at this point, muttering sweet lies and consoling words to one another as they tried to get the image of their injured friend out of their minds in favor of a healthy one. God, why couldn’t humans have been born without any emotional attachment?

He set his sights on Eren for now. He could worry about everything else later. And again, he was really being a selfish son of a bitch, but maybe that’s what he actually was.

He looked into every room, and people were either knocked out or sitting up in a daze, wondering what was going on. Each room was met with disappointment, because Eren wasn’t there. He was starting to wonder whether Eren even made it to the hospital or not, and other ridiculous thoughts started popping into his head and gave him more stress than he needed for a lifetime.

Then he lucked out on the second to last room, because as he squinted, there was Eren, lying near the window, seemingly unconscious but alive, and Rivaille would have tripped at the speed he made his way to Eren, because he was just so glad to see the shitty brat’s face.

There weren’t many other patients in the room, and the ones that were in the room were sleeping, calling their families, and even updating their status on their Facebooks. They seemed to pay no mind to Rivaille, too focused on getting the word out that they survived.

Rivaille sat in the stool next to Eren’s bed, carefully studying his face. He was dirty and disheveled, but he was breathing and that was all that mattered. He looked serene and calm, not at all like the frenzied Eren he kissed not too long ago.

“God damn it, Eren,” Rivaille lowered his voice to barely above a whisper. “You had me fucking scared for no fucking goddamned reason.” He reached out to lightly smack Eren in the face, but resorted to brushing his hair out of the way.

Eren bristled slightly, and Rivaille snapped his hand back, like Eren was a fragile flower that would break when touched.

But he looked so beautiful nonetheless.

“Oh! Could you be Rivaille?” A girl’s voice called, catching said man’s attention. He turned to see a girl with black pigtails smiling at him gleefully, a blonde guy with sideburns next to her equally as perky.

Strange for kids who just made it out alive from a fire.

“Yes,” Rivaille looked wary, and the two students looked at each other with knowing smiles.

“I told you! He looks exactly how Eren described him to be,” the girl sniggered.

“What’s going on?” Rivaille asked warily.

“Congratulations,” Sideburns lifted his phone to show Rivaille something. Rivaille stood up and walked over, curious as to what-

He was going to fucking kill Eren when he woke up.

How dare he feign innocence and fainting and post a fucking picture to Facebook in the ambulance, holding out a peace sign, saying he was in a relationship with Rivaille.

It had 103 fucking likes already and another swarm of comments that Rivaille did not want to read. He saw Hanji comment on it a few seconds after he got over his initial anger with an obnoxious “TOLD YOU SOOOO”.

Eren’s status was followed by blurry, crap quality pictures of different angles students took candidly of the brief kiss, all with their fair share of likes and comments. One of the pictures he suspected was from the girl with black pigtails, Mina Carolina. How the hell was this kind of thing circulated so quickly?

Rivaille chose to ignore the giggling fits Mina and her friend were having as he heard a weak voice from Eren’s cot.

“Hey,”

Rivaille marched right over and crossed his arms, looking as menacing as possible to a cowering Eren.

“I-I know it seems bad, but,” Eren couldn’t stifle a sheepish smile as Rivaille glared down at him with eyes that could cut a building in half.

“I love you?” Eren squeaked as he jumped under the covers of his hospital bed. Rivaille bit his lip and sat down on the stool.

“I don’t have any fucking time for your bullshit right now, Eren.” Rivaille sighed, remembering just why he was there. Eren peeked from under his cover like a child. As much as Rivaille wanted to continue this childish game with Eren, this was not the right time at all. “I came to tell you some bad news.” He looked over to Mina and Sideburns. “You guys should listen up, too.”

“Your friend, Marco.” Eren sat up and looked dark at the very mention of his friend. Mina and Sideburns tensed up as well, shutting off their phones.

“Is he okay?” Eren asked. Rivaille shook his head.

“He’s been injured very seriously.” He heard Mina gasp silently. “In fact, half of his body has been burnt to a crisp and he’s fighting for his life right now. We have our best team on his case, but…whether he survives or not is up to him.”

Eren’s fists visibly tightened into his sheets, and his eyes flared with anger.

“Who could have done this to him? I swear to God, if and when I find them, I’ll beat them up so hard they’ll wish they were never born…”

Rivaille put a hand on his shoulder. Eren looked to Rivaille with a pitifully angered look on his face. He shook his head once more. “Let it go, Eren. They’ll be arrested for an indefinite amount of time when they’re caught. You won’t be able to do anything.” He was speaking from experience.

And he must have sounded pretty upset at that because Lord knew he’s been through that numerous times before, where he couldn’t do shit about the criminals who did such horrible things to a victim’s body. Sometimes they even got away scot-free. Even he could hear the bitterness in his voice.

Eren sensed Rivaille’s anger, and took his hand off his shoulder and pressed it against his cheek, an action far too uncomfortably loving for Rivaille in this kind of situation, or in life in general.

Rivaille wondered how the situation itself went from jovial to somber to jovial to somber in a span of a few minutes. One second, Eren’s friends were joking around, the next they were hit by this tragedy. One second, Mina and her friend were shipping him and Eren hard, the next, everyone in the room were shocked to silence. And his hand was on Eren’s face. What?

Strangely, it was calming.

Rivaille pried his hand out of Eren’s grip, wanting to get out as soon as possible.

“Are you leaving?” Eren asked. Rivaille nodded.

“Will you come back?” Rivaille shrugged.

“Will Marco be okay?”

Rivaille squared his jaw and looked Eren straight in the eye. And with all the conviction he had, he said, “He will be.”

Eren looked relieved, and fell back into his bed, closing his eyes. Rivaille realized how hard it must have been for a kid who breathed in a shitload of smoke not too long ago to even talk, and felt bad for leaving so soon, but he had priorities. Erwin paged him promptly after leaving Eren, telling him that the surgery needed Rivaille this instant.

But no matter how many priorities he had in check, he was not prepared for an Asian-American girl with a glaringly red scarf glaring at Rivaille with the eyes of a hunter in front of Eren’s bed three days later.


	17. Mikasa

“Oh, Rivaille! You’re just in time!”

Apparently Eren didn’t feel the stillness of the air between the hostile Asian girl and the actually intimidated Rivaille.

Honestly, he just came in to tell Eren some good news about his friend and this is what he got. A girl with a look that screamed “kill”.

“Hello,” Rivaille said cautiously. The girl didn’t look like someone who was in any way amiable, but it was a good start, he supposed. She adjusted her red scarf, still sending Rivaille a heated look of hatred; why, Rivaille didn’t know.

Eren grinned. “This is my adoptive sister, Mikasa!”

Said girl’s glare softened at the mention of her name by Eren.

“Hello,” Mikasa returned, still wary of Rivaille and not hesitating to show it.

Rivaille nodded and contemplated whether to walk out or approach Eren. The former seemed safer and not any life-threatening.

“She came because she heard about the fire,” Eren continued, not feeling the tense air at all. “Apparently it’s a huge deal nationwide!”

“You seem awfully proud of that, idiot.” Rivaille rolled his eyes, much to the obvious annoyance of Mikasa. He walked over to Eren and sat on the stool, holding clipboards with a bunch of messy notes from the last few days. Most of the patients had been checked out at this point, only a few left to stay and recuperate. Eren’s injuries hadn’t been terrible, just a few burn sparks here and there, but the amount of smoke he inhaled chained him to the bed for at least two more days.

Eren sobered up for a few moments as he collected himself and sat up. “Is this about Marco?” he asked. Rivaille nodded. So the kid _could_ read the atmosphere at times.

“I’m happy to announce he’s alive, but…well, he’s as alive as a person with third-degree burns on half his body can get.” Rivaille decided to save the grotesque details for when Eren was completely ready to hear it, because the kid was a loose cannon at this point. “He hasn’t woken up yet, however, and his family is currently waiting to see him.”

Eren didn’t look as happy as he did a few moments ago, because even though his friend was breathing, Rivaille basically told him that Marco’s life was hanging on a literal cord of life support.

It was amazing how one piece of information could determine an entire flip in the mood.

“Will he be okay?” Eren asked after a somber bout of silence.

Rivaille didn’t know how to answer. “Whether he survives or not all depends on if he wakes up or not.” He chose his words carefully. After all, the surgery was a success, but more often than not, he’d seen patients going into sudden shock or never waking up at all, in a catatonic, comatose state until their loved ones took responsibility and ended their lives.

Eren nodded. He understood.

Rivaille nodded as well. “Just…try not to be too worried. He’s stable right now, and from what I know, he’s a strong kid.” He motioned to get up, but froze when he heard Eren’s stomach growl.

He raised an eyebrow and Eren shrugged nervously. “I’ve been waiting for the news to eat. Can I go downstairs to the cafeteria to get something?”

Well, it was better than being depressed until Marco woke up.

As Rivaille was about to respond, Mikasa held out a hand. “I’ll go for you,” she offered.

“That won’t be necessary, he can walk on his own at this point.” Rivaille countered. Mikasa shut him up with a glare. What the hell did she have against him?

“It’s fine, Mikasa, I got it.” Eren said, but Mikasa insisted on going nonetheless.

“At least have Rivaille go with you, you might get lost,” Eren pleaded. Rivaille thought she’d refuse, but she nodded pretty quickly and strutted out the door. He followed suit.

As soon as they were out of the room, Mikasa turned on her heel and peered down at Rivaille.

“So. YOU’RE Rivaille?” she asked, like she couldn’t believe it. Rivaille was quite used to people looking down on him, both literally and hypothetically, and even used to cold glances from people he steered the wrong way somehow, but it wasn’t like he could do much about it.

“What of it?” Rivaille retorted, not about to back down either way because this girl was being unreasonably rude.

“I expected someone more trustworthy,” Mikasa muttered as she turned to walk to god knows where.

Rivaille didn’t know whether to be irked or confused, but he was a mixture of both at the moment. He hadn’t talked to this girl for more than 2 seconds and she was already judging him on about six different levels. He didn’t feel like leading the way to the cafeteria; the girl could take care of herself, so he walked back to Eren.

“What the fresh hell is wrong with your sister?” he asked, barging in the door. Eren looked up from his round of Flappy Bird, effectively dying in the process, and stared at Rivaille quizzically.

“Huh? I thought you were gonna show her the way,” Eren asked.

“She’s been giving me the look ever since I walked in the damn room. What did you tell her?”

Eren looked as confused as Rivaille felt, and started rambling. “I didn’t say anything to her,” he replied. “I just told her you’re my roommate, you saved me from the school, and, you know, that we’re kind of a thing now.”

Rivaille groaned and rubbed his face for a few seconds before giving a tired glance. “Why, Eren. Who are you to decide we’re a thing now?” Eren grinned sheepishly. The tiredness in Rivaille’s voice took out the venom that was supposed to be there, and both parties knew Rivaille didn’t mean anything he just said.

“So…I take it you’re not getting along with Mikasa?” Eren asked.

“Does it look like anything remotely resembling me getting along with Mikasa.” Rivaille deadpanned, fighting the urge to roll his eyes.

“I’m sure if you gave each other a chance…”

“Hey, I was more than willing to give out chances. She’s just evil.”

“Oh, come on, Mikasa isn’t evil.”

“I beg to differ.”

“She’s my sister.”

“Amazing. That changes everything.”

“Now that I think about it, you two do have clashing personalities.”

“Good job, would you like a medal?”

“But I mean, you know what they say….opposites attract?”

“That’s not even the correct usage for the term, stupid.”

“Yeah, you’re right, I guess. If you two ended up liking each other I might end up strangling my sister.” Eren joked, and Rivaille cringed.

“Your jokes are tasteless as always. Glad to see that hasn’t changed with the whole fiasco.”

“My jokes aren’t the only things that are tasteless- wait, that’s more of an insult towards me, isn’t it?” Eren grimaced, and Rivaille let out the smallest bit of a chuckle. Things were finally seeming okay, and he appreciated that.

“I’m glad you’re here, actually. I wanted to ask you something. In private.” Eren said, changing the subject.

“What?”

“So. When I’m released today or tomorrow, can I take you out to dinner?”

Rivaille gave Eren an unamused expression. “You’re a broke college student, Eren. If anything, I’ll end up paying for the entire thing.”

Eren lit up at that. “That’s even better!”

“Because that’s so much different than what we’ve already established.”

“I think you should just admit it. You’re in loooove with me,” Eren cooed. Rivaille blanched.

“That’s disgusting. You’re disgusting.”

“You loooove me.”

“I’m going to punch you.”

“You love me almost as much as you love Windex.”

“Key word almost. As in not completely there. You have a long way to go.”

“Eren and Rivaille, sitting in a tree…”

“I hate you. Fiveever.”

“That’s not what you said when you kissed me,” Eren retorted, blushing as soon as the words left his mouth.

“Oh. Right.” Rivaille could feel himself getting a bit uncomfortable, and cleared his throat.

There was an awkward silence between the two before Eren piped up again. Damn kid.

“The kiss…you meant it, right?” Eren asked cautiously, so as not to scare Rivaille away.

“Whatever floats your boat, kid.”

“Hey! I know you were into it, too! You literally took my breath away! I couldn’t breathe!”

“You’re making me sound like a murderer, not a lover.”

“OHHHH! SEEEEE! You do love me!” Eren’s eyes flashed and he pointed accusingly at Rivaille’s face.

“Ughhghghghhhhhh.” Rivaille moaned and slammed his face into his hands.

“YOU LOOOOOOVEEEEE MEEEE!” Eren exclaimed with joy.

“Shut the fuck up or I’ll make you,” Rivaille threatened, pushing Eren’s face away with his palm.

Then he heard stomps from the hallway and a positively dangerous aura seep in to the atmosphere, and the two promptly stopped.

“I got your favorite, Eren,” Mikasa managed through gritted teeth as she crossed the room. “Ham and cheese.”

She gave the grateful Eren his wrapped sandwich and, call a spade a spade, nudged- no, more like shoved Rivaille out of the way.

“Thanks, Mikasa, you’re the best.” Eren said as he started devouring the sandwich. Mikasa huffed quietly with pride. The cafeteria line wasn’t very long.

“Jean’s here, too,” she commented after a while, causing Eren to stop chewing. “Said something about an internship program at this hospital and how he’d stay for a week and see how everything works.”

Eren had a peculiar look on his face, a mix of anger and the urge to laugh. “Does that horsedick not realize he lives literally on the other side of the country?”

Mikasa shrugged.

Eren rolled his eyes and continued chewing. Jean wasn’t his problem. Mikasa directed her attention toward Rivaille.

“I believe Eren was mentioning something about you being his…thing?” she asked. Rivaille choked.

“Uh…well, not exactly but…” Two things kept him from finishing the sentence; Mikasa’s protective Grudge glare and Eren’s falling expression. “Yeah, sure, we are. I am.”

Mikasa raised an eyebrow. “Really? You don’t sound too sure.”

“I’m sure,” Rivaille gave her an equally scary look, the one he used in his former thug days to rob small-town grocery stores and whatnot. But Mikasa didn’t falter. Huh. Funny.

Mikasa stayed silent for a while then stepped closer to Rivaille.

“If you do or have done anything to hurt him, I swear to god you won’t feel your reproductive system working properly anytime soon…” she said through her demonically red scarf. Rivaille gulped.

“Gotcha.” He replied. Mikasa backed off and looked outside the window with a sort of forlorn expression before coming back to Earth.

“Eren, as I was saying earlier…” Mikasa turned to said boy, who was nearly done with his sandwich. “Y’know, before he rudely interrupted.” Mikasa gestured to Rivaille. Rivaille bit back swears.

“Mmhmm?”

“I didn’t come here to just visit you.”

Rivaille scoffed. Mikasa ignored him.

“I came because, well, I was super worried, but another thing, too…”

Eren’s face spelled inquisitive. Mikasa sighed.

“After you get released from the hospital, dad wants you to come back home.”

Dead silence rang throughout the room.

Funny thing, Eren wasn’t the one to break the silence.

“What?” Rivaille said that a bit more harshly than he needed to.

Mikasa’s eyes were downcast so as to deflect some of the guilt that she was feeling for simply being the messenger of bad news.

“He doesn’t think it’s safe for Eren to stay anymore.” She remarked. Rivaille shook his head.

“That’s bullshit. It was an accident. It won’t happen again. Probably.”

He probably shouldn’t have added that ‘probably’.

Eren sputtered. “What the hell, Mikasa! Are you serious right now? I’m barely hurt! Look at me, I’m finer than ever!”

Mikasa sighed. “I, I can see that, it’s just, well…you know dad. When he said this, he was pretty stressed from work, he got sued again by a family deranged with grief, and even though it’s more than likely this will end up being nothing again…so maybe he didn’t really mean it, but…mom agrees, too. You should come back home.”

“I’m not going back! I finally found my place here and they want me to come back home?” Eren exclaimed. “You, too, Mikasa?”

“I’m happy if you’re happy, Eren! I would have thought you’d want to come back, as well!”

“Well, I don’t! This is my home now.” Eren protested. His eyes stung from the tears that always tagged along with his frustration. “And besides, I have Rivaille with me!”

“I tried telling him that. But he said Rivaille could only do so much if this situation were to be worse.”

She glanced at him. “He thanks you for what you did for Eren, though. And his friends.”

Rivaille stepped in. “I’ll talk to Grisha. He’s a very understanding man, I’m sure he’ll listen.”

Mikasa stared at her shoes. Eren nodded. “I’ll talk to him, too.”

“The thing is, he already bought a plane ticket for you,” Mikasa said. “It leaves in a week from now.”

Eren’s jaw dropped.

“What the actual fuck, Mikasa?!”

Mikasa buried her face into her scarf. “I’m sorry, Eren. There’s nothing I can do.”

“Can’t you cancel the plane ticket?”

“It’s coach and cost 300 dollars. There’s a 100 dollar penalty fee.”

Eren swallowed. That was a pretty hefty sum to be dealt with.

“How could you agree to this?!”

“I’m sorry, Eren, I really am. We can talk it out at home…”

“No! I’m not leaving this city at all, you tell dad that and tell him I don’t care what he thinks is best for me this time, I am a grown person and I am tired of him always telling me-“

“I…I’ve gotta go now. I’ll call you later, okay?” Mikasa spun on her heel and walked away briskly.

“Wait!” Eren yelled after her, but she strutted out adamantly.

“What the hell just happened?” he turned to Rivaille. Rivaille had no words to say, either.

“I don’t know what just happened,” Eren exclaimed in disbelief.

He buried his face into his hands. “I don’t want to go. What…what is dad even thinking? This kind of thing can happen to anyone…I’m an adult! Why am I even listening to him?”

He looked up to Rivaille. “I don’t want to leave, Rivaille.”

Rivaille looked down at him. “I know.”

He didn’t want him to leave, either.

Everything was finally falling into place, and life just had to fucking hit them like a freight train.

“There must be something we can do, then! I can call him, argue with him, if I beg enough I’m sure he’ll change his mind…but I have to call him on a good day, and give reasonable arguments as to why, maybe I can show him my grades, or pictures, or anything, I don’t know-“

Eren stopped talking and stared at Rivaille, who grabbed Eren’s hand to get him to shut up.

“Let’s take this slowly, Eren.” He suggested. Eren took a few breaths to calm himself down. Didn’t really work.

“Calm down.”

“I can’t calm! This is horrible, what the fuck? I’m so pissed right now, every little thing sets them off every damn time and they always make me give up whatever the hell I’ve been doing just for the sake of my own ‘safety’. This is complete bullshit!”

“Calm down, Eren.”

“Just when everything was seeming okay, now it’s just all ruined! Just when we finally became a thing, and…”

“Jesus Christ, Eren, seriously, calm yourself.”

“How?! In seven days, I’ll be gone, and, this is just too much, Rivaille, I can’t, I really can’t and I don’t want to go-“

For the second time in his life, Eren was shut up by a kiss. He initially protested slightly, but quickly closed his eyes and let Rivaille do the calm for him. It wasn’t like the first kiss at all, wild and passionate and just full of desperation and the feeling of gladness. This kiss was soft and sweet, soothing, calming, like Eren was simply floating in an ocean and letting the waves rock him back and forth, as cheesy and cliché as it sounded. He turned his head slightly so Rivaille could kiss him at a better angle, but he broke away, leaving Eren completely disappointed and wanting more.

Eren looked dazed, as Rivaille backed away enough so that he could examine his expression.

“Seven days is plenty of time, alright, brat?”

Eren gulped. Rivaille smiled slightly.

“How about that date?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's amazing how things can go from bad to good to bad just like that namsayin?  
> just like the fact that i have a smut chapter ready in my mind but its soooo awkward to type out   
> i crai


	18. Date

“The day has finally come,” Ymir hooted. “Eren is becoming a man!”

“Be quiet, Ymir,” Christa pleaded as she fixed Eren’s tie. “I need to get this straight…”

“But to think, all it took was Eren jumping out of a burning building and winning his heart just like that? You should have done this sooner, Eren,” Ymir remarked, flipping through the channels on Reiner and Bertholdt’s TV. After Steven Universe ended, she was channel surfing like there was no tomorrow in search of a better show to watch.

News of the date got out fast. Or rather, Eren told Reiner and Reiner told the entire world. They all simultaneously agreed to make use of Reiner and Bertholdt’s condo as the place to get Eren ready for the big day. And make use of it, they did.

Eren felt like a Barbie doll as his friends scrambled around the room to fix him up for the big event later that evening. It was only five o’clock, and Eren already looked somewhat dapper in a dress shirt, pants, and tie.

“Guys, this is really unnecessary…” he began, only to be shut up by everyone’s glares.

“There is never too much necessary for a date,” Reiner said sagely as he combed down Eren’s hair into another style, probably the fifth style that day. “Bertholdt, is this good?”

Bertholdt looked up from where he was researching good date venues on his laptop, something really not needed since Rivaille was picking out the place, anyway. Eren had an inkling he knew why Bertholdt was researching such things, and he suspected strongly it had to do with either Reiner or Annie. “No, he looks like something from an 80s movie,” he dismissed, and went back to researching.

Reiner grunted and got to work on another hairstyle that popped into his mind.

“Christa, don’t you think his tie should be black, to match his suit?” Armin asked, reading a Men’s Wearhouse catalog he found stashed under Bertholdt’s bed.

“No way, then it’ll look like he’s going to a funeral,” Christa argued, messing up again. “Armin, you made me falter!” She took off the tie entirely, and Eren groaned. She grumbled something about suits being red if the tie was read, and how Armin was being ridiculous.

“Maybe you should try a different color,” Annie suggested. She and Ymir were the only ones who thought the entire thing was ridiculous and the blonde was currently catching up on Teen Wolf on Reiner’s laptop.

“You’re right! Should we try paisley? No, dark green! It’ll bring out the color in your eyes, Eren.” Christa chirped. Ymir looked annoyed.

“Hey, Christa, how about you pay some of the attention you’re giving to Eren to me, instead?” Ymir called, only to be ignored by said girl. Eren looked over apologetically.

Sasha called from the kitchen. “THE POTATOES ARE BAKING! I repeat, the potatoes are baking!” she exclaimed, with an appreciative whoop from Connie.

“Ain’t no party like a potato party,” the two sang. Everyone was wondering how the two weren’t going out already, it was kind of frustrating.

“Why is it always potatoes? Do you realize how much starch that shit has?” Ymir bitched.

Sasha gasped audibly. “YMIR! Apologize immediately to the potato gods!!! They’ll be angry!”

“Guys, shut up! I can’t hear what Scott just said!” Annie complained, rewinding the video so she could appreciate the full beauty of Tyler Posey.

Eren sighed, but didn’t say much. He couldn’t possibly complain or anything. After all, he was still admiring how his friends managed to put on their usual airs even when their friend was struggling to live.

 _“There’s no point in being depressed, Eren,”_ Annie had said. _“We have to continue living for the ones we love.”_

 _“Marco will wake up. He’s the only one of us who’s never been late to Zackly’s lectures,”_ Reiner laughed casually.

 _“He promised to take me to the Potato Emporium in a few weeks, so he can’t possibly stay asleep.”_ Sasha added brightly. Connie wilted slightly.

 _“And Marco wouldn’t want us to be such wussies. He’d feel this way if he were awake, too,”_ Ymir shrugged. _“’Sides, he’s a strong kid. I guarantee you he’ll wake up, I’ll even bet on it, that’s how sure I am.”_

It was actually the first time Eren had ever heard Ymir and Annie even remotely compliment someone, and he knew, deep down they were all worried and they were scared but they cared strongly and hoped for the best, something Eren needed to get a grip on. They were right, being worried for Marco wouldn’t do the kid any good. In fact, he’d probably get angry they were all so hung up on him. Eren needed to be happy for Marco’s sake.

“What’s with that smile on your face, Eren?” Bertholdt sneered, and Eren realized his lips were turned up without his realization.

“Excited for the big night?” Reiner teased. Everyone giggled, even Eren.

“Something like that, yeah.” Eren replied, and everyone resumed their activities. A quiet humming was coming from Christa as she picked out ties from Reiner’s closet.

“Hey, Ymir, is Teen Wolf on?” Annie asked, turning her head to see Ymir loll her head over to her direction.

“Not for another 20 minutes.”

“Switch in 20, then?”

“’Kay.”

“Bertholdt, which pants suit do you think would suit me the most? I’ve been meaning to get a new one because Sasha tore a hole in mine last time.” Armin asked.

“Are your legs even long enough to fit into those pants?” Bertholdt joked, mocking Armon’s short stature and observing the long legs of the models.

“Hey, at least he can wear jeans. Every frickin’ pair of jeans you try on at the mall end up as capris and no one wants to see that hairyass leg of yours,” Ymir snorted, setting off another roar of laughter.

“In his defense, his legs are shaped quite beautifully,” Reiner declared. The room went silent with an awkward cough from Annie. Bertholdt blushed furiously, and Eren confirmed who the date venues were for.

“WHY ARE THE POTATOES BURNING OH MY GOD!” Connie yelled from the kitchen. There were clangs and bangs as Sasha and Connie hurried around the kitchen to waft the smell of smoke out.

“I don’t know! It’s Ymir’s fault! She upset the potato gods!” Sasha blamed.

“The only god you’ll be praying to is the one up there if you don’t shut the hell up or I’ll stick my foot up your asses,” Annie stated venomously as she missed yet another clever line from Teen Wolf and had to rewind again.

It was amazing how casual everyone was being, and Eren wondered if he was the only one who had trouble suppressing his emotions when it came to thoughts of Marco. But then again, everyone was probably worried sick; they just knew how to conceal it.

Or maybe it was also partly because he hadn’t told any of them about his 7-day expiration date.

He initially pondered whether he should tell them or not, but in the end, found that it was too hard to tell. They were too close. And even if he left, they’d find him on Facebook anyway, and it’s always easier to explain things online than in real life. By then, he’d be long gone, and he wouldn’t have to suffer the wrath of his friends face-to-face.

Eren sighed. He felt heavy again. Ever since Mikasa dropped that bomb on him, he was an emotional wreck. In fact, he was such an emotional wreck that the day before, when he was released from the hospital, he watched nothing but Frozen, Mulan, and The Princess and the Frog to gain some motivation to keep himself in check. Rivaille was working late into the night, so he couldn’t make fun of Eren sobbing into the pillow as he flipped through the Disney movies.

But he had to suck it up. Everyone else was trying their best to seem normal after Marco’s incident. He couldn’t be the only one who didn’t try. He had to, for Marco’s sake.

So many things were happening at the same time. His head was spinning.

To be happy, or to not be happy?

* * *

About two hours later, Eren was all dolled up for the date.

“You look absolutely precious!” Christa clasped her hands together with joy.

“Rivaille’s going to have a hard time keeping the ladies off you tonight,” Reiner grinned.

Eren looked at himself in the mirror in Reiner’s room, taking in his magical transformation. So this was what girls felt like when they put on makeup.

His hair was gelled back into a sleek, practical hairdo, something that resembled Leonardo Dicaprio’s in the Titanic before he drowned. His suit fit him in all the right places, instead of hanging loosely from his frame and looking out of place. Christa’s dark green tie really did bring out his eyes, and they seemed to shine brighter than normal. Christa insisted on letting her use a bit of makeup for his face, and he looked professionally airbrushed, much like Erwin did when they first met. His shoes were shined, courtesy of Armin who had nothing better to do, and overall Eren looked like a classy New Yorker you’d see on the cover of men’s magazines, walking down an empty street in the middle of the night in perfect lighting.

“Wow,” he breathed.

“You look fabulous,” Sasha smiled.

“Like a model,” Connie added.

Annie seemed to approve.

“He said he’d pick you up at seven, right?” Bertholdt asked. “At our place?”

“Yup,” Eren replied, vaguely remembering the directions he gave Rivaille. He wondered if Rivaille would have gotten lost on his way. It was 6:55, and Eren hoped Rivaille wouldn’t be too late, or even worse, stand him up. Then all his friends’ efforts would have gone to waste, and he’d never live it down.

Armin checked the time. “He should get here soon,”

Ymir snorted back a laugh. “Watch him ditch.”

Christa stepped on her toe innocently. “Ow!” Ymir glared down at Christa, but the girl looked around as if nothing happened.

“He won’t ditch!” Eren protested. “…Will he?”

Fortunately, just then, the intercom buzzed, signaling that someone, most likely Rivaille, was downstairs in the lobby, waiting. Eren sighed with relief.

Reiner hurriedly answered, confirming it was Rivaille, and everyone ushered Eren out.

“Man, I was hoping it’d be the pizza,” Ymir snarked. She just couldn’t let him go normally, could she?

“Good luck, Eren! Call us as soon as your date ends!” Armin pat his friend on the shoulder. Eren nodded.

“Nah, they’d be too busy banging. Just thank us tomorrow!” Connie joked, much to Eren’s chagrin and everyone’s delight.

“Bye, guys! Thanks for everything, really.” Eren called one last time as he pressed the elevator button that led to the lobby. Everyone’s heads poked out from inside of the condo, wishing him solemn luck and saluting him farewell.

The ride down on the elevator felt like forever, even though Reiner and Bertholdt only lived on the 5th floor. He was getting nervous. What if he overdressed? No, Rivaille gave him specific instructions on how to dress. Apparently where they were going was fancy and a courtesy of a “friend”. So appearance-wise, Eren was good.

But how would he act? How would he talk or present himself? He hadn’t gone on a date in a very long time and every date he had been on in the past, he effectively fucked up greatly. Royally fucked up. As in, some girls went home frustrated and teary-eyed. Others just slapped him in the face.

He couldn’t help it that virtual football came first.

Girls had to understand Eli Manning would always take priority over them.

But Rivaille wasn’t a girl. And for once, Eren wasn’t playing the role of the perfect boyfriend, Rivaille was. Although, Rivaille was already perfect as it was, the boyfriend part was the only title in questioning.

The elevator dinged. Eren sucked in a bunch of air. Finally, the moment of truth.

He walked out of the elevator to see across the room, a classy gentleman who resembled Rivaille.

It was, in fact, Rivaille, but he looked so different.

His hair wasn’t totally slicked back like Eren’s was; a few flyaway strands flew here and there but other than that, he looked impeccable. He was holding his suit jacket in one hand and was checking the time on his wristwatch. He was donned in a pinstripe dress shirt with his pants clung to his legs, defining them even further, way more beautiful than Bertholdt’s could have been. He was tapping his feet impatiently. Eren swore he could see sparkles radiating from Rivaille.

But most of all, the dark-framed rectangular glasses that sat on his face was all Eren focused on.

He forgot just how attractive Rivaille looked with glasses.

He also forgot how Rivaille wore contacts on a daily basis because he was too scared to get LASIK eye surgery, something he admitted when he was drunk.

He ultimately forgot how Rivaille hated being waited on.

“Hurry up, you son of a bitch.” Rivaille called from outside the glass door. “You can admire me later.”

“Oh! Uh, right!” Eren hurriedly crossed the lobby to reach Rivaille, opening the door in a hurry and looking down at his date for the night.

‘ _Call us as soon as your date ends!_ ’ Armin’s words echoed in Eren’s head.

Date.

It was a date.

“You look amazing,” Eren said.

Rivaille raised an eyebrow. “You don’t look too bad, yourself. Should have cut back on the cologne, though.” He scrunched up his nose in the cute way Eren loved.

Eren remembered how Annie insisted he wear Bertholdt’s Polo Ralph Lauren cologne, and accidentally doused a whole bunch when trying to adjust the spray. It took a whole twenty minutes to get the smell out of everyone’s throat and the condo itself.

Rivaille, as always, smelled amazing. It was his usual cologne, but he smelled classical and hot, and Eren wondered if the glasses had anything to do with that.

“Come on, I parked my car illegally and I’d rather not get fined tonight.” Rivaille walked off into the distance, Eren following like a puppy.

Eren almost didn’t remember Rivaille had a car.

His workplace wasn’t so far from his home, and Rivaille only took his car for business meetings. New York was designed so that mass transit took less time in the mornings than with cars, because traffic got so bad to the point where people started screaming at each other at 6 in the morning, hyped up on Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts.

It was a shame, really. Rivaille owned a shiny, 2012 Porsche 911 Black Edition that still looked like he bought it the day before, it was in such a pristine condition. Just the very look of it caused orgasmic screams from car fanatics and girlfriends’ jealousies.

Eren wondered if the car had been fully paid off yet.

“Good, no tickets. Get in, the reservation’s at 7:15.” Rivaille nodded, making his way to the driver’s seat.

Eren obeyed, making himself at home in the passenger seat, and the car roared to life. Pretty soon, they were cruising up New York, and Eren couldn’t help but feel giddy.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked.

“McDonalds,” Rivaille replied sarcastically.

“Well, you never told me where we were going.”

“That’s part of the surprise, idiot.”

Eren hummed and sat back. Rivaille looked pretty sexy when he drove. He was a good enough driver to drive with one hand on the wheel and the other resting on Eren’s hand, and Eren blushed. It was the little things Rivaille did that always got him in the end.

He should have been grateful Rivaille’s hand was on his and not somewhere else.

“Why are you wearing your glasses?” Eren piped up.

“Why can’t I wear my glasses?” Rivaille shut him down.

“Right.” Eren smiled sheepishly and intertwined their fingers together, hoping it wouldn’t cause any commotion.

Rivaille didn’t seem to mind.

The car ride was short, about 15 minutes total, and most of it was Eren (terribly) singing along to the new Pop hits, including Sara Bereilles’ song “Brave” and Selena Gomez’s “Love you Like a Love Song”, but they finally got to where Rivaille wanted.

And Eren’s jaw dropped.

“We can’t go in here,” Eren turned on his heel and walked back to the car. Rivaille grabbed him by the arm, annoyed.

“Says who? You?” he replied.

“Yeah! This restaurant is fucking EXPENSIVE!” Eren yelled. Rivaille cringed.

“Aren’t I paying?” Rivaille asked, motioning for Eren to keep it down.

“Nope. Can’t let you. Let’s go home, we can still order Chinese and stay home.” Eren pleaded.

They were standing in front of Le Bernardin, a two-minute walk from where Rivaille parked because he refused to let valets touch his car. THE Le Bernardin, the 3-star Michelin restaurant voted number one in New York City, followed closely by Per Se and Daniel. THE Le Bernardin, where one dish probably cost more than Eren’s existence altogether.

Eren couldn’t possibly eat here without sinking in debt.

“Shut the fuck up, we agreed I’d choose the venue tonight, so here we are. So screw you, now let’s go in.” Rivaille strutted into the restaurant like nobody’s business, and Eren followed clumsily behind, tripping over his own feet, silently worrying if he’d end up having to do dishes, in case Rivaille ran out on him or something.

The nice waitress showed them to their seats, handing them their menus and drinks, and Eren started fidgeting with the expensive-looking tablecloth. Rivaille looked annoyed.

“There are people here, Eren. It’s okay to breathe.”

Eren nodded, and looked around. Never in his sad, little life would he have thought he’d set foot in one of the most prestigious restaurants in the Big City. This place was famous for its seafood, something Rivaille must have considered well, because Eren had a certain love for the ocean and all its delicacies. The place was furnished beautifully, radiating light and boasting a giant painting of waves in the back of the room.

He felt like he was being judged by everyone there, when in reality no one probably cared who he was. He seemed to fit in, at least. All the men were wearing dashingly gorgeous suit ensembles, and the women were wearing tight, designer dresses, and Eren wondered just how they were going to eat without passing out from lack of oxygen and/or a bloated stomach.

He noticed Rivaille take his suit jacket off, and Eren copied his motions ineptly.

Rivaille chuckled, noticing Eren being an idiot. “You’re too cute.”

Eren’s heart thumped and he blushed like mad. Cute? Cute?! Rivaille was calling him cute? Call Fox News and CNN, this was a moment to be recorded.

‘Even the tap water probably costs like $20 here’, Eren thought, so as to dispel the weird thoughts forming in his head. He gingerly took a sip out of the glass, hoping not to drop it lest he wanted to pay reparation fees. Just sitting in the chair made Eren feel like a king.

“Aren’t you going to look over the food?” Rivaille asked. Eren choked, coughed, much to the confusion of people around him and the silent amusement of Rivaille, and picked up his menu.

“I was going to.” He replied, looking over the menu. It was filled with food Eren had never even heard of. Everything seemed to be in a foreign language. No, it definitely was, half of the menu must have been in French. Eren gulped.

“ _Bonjour!_ ” Their server for tonight arrived at their table. He had a thick French accent and wavy, shoulder-length blonde hair tied back into a neat ponytail. He looked handsome, even if he was their server, and Eren found himself wondering if every server looked like him. He reminded him of Erd with longer hair. He looked happy to be there.

Then it struck him.

Eren didn’t speak French.

He looked to Rivaille desperately for assistance. Rivaille rolled his eyes.

“ _Bonjour, ça va_?” Rivaille replied, and the server looked delighted.

“ _Vous parlez français_?” The server asked, happy to speak in his native language. Rivaille smiled.

“ _Oui.Nous aimerions quelques minutes de plus avant de commander_.”

The server nodded. “ _Bon. Je vais revenir dans quelques minutes pour prendre votre commande_.” He walked off to greet some other customers.

Rivaille resumed looking over his menu while Eren looked obviously uncomfortable and hot under the collar. He never knew Rivaille could speak French. He remembered Hanji saying something about Rivaille’s nationality and how his name was French but he never imagined he’d find the man actually speaking the language in this lifetime.

It kind of turned him on.

“You okay, kid? You look like you have a fever,” Rivaille asked, slightly worried Eren was sick. The last thing he needed was Eren being sick all over the table.

Eren nodded. “Huh? Yeah, I’m fine! Of course I am, why wouldn’t I be? I just! I didn’t know you spoke French y’know just that one tiny detail when did that happen?!”

A corner of Rivaille’s lips turned up. “Stop acting like you’ve never heard another language before, brat. Yes, I speak French, why is that such a shock?”

Eren looked down, face still probably red. Rivaille had to think of Erwin’s balding hair to keep himself restrained, or he might have jumped Eren right then and there.

“S-so tell me, how do you know this place exactly?” Eren asked, trying to change the subject and calm himself down. Rivaille shrugged.

I came here once with Erwin. Two friends of ours work here, but they’re the chefs, so it’d be hard to see them. I promised them I’d come back soon, though.”

Eren perked up at Erwin’s name, “With Erwin?”

Rivaille looked up for a moment before answering Eren. “Yeah.”

“Oh. Uh. Were you two…a thing? I mean, it’s not like it matters! You know, after all, we’re here, not him and you, so, well, yeah. Were you? Are you?” Eren asked cautiously. He stumbled over his words and wished he could be smoother with his diction, like Rivaille was.

Rivaille smiled almost sadly. It was probably good to let the kid know now before he found out from another source, and that wouldn’t be pretty. “Yes, Eren. Erwin and I were a…thing, for lack of a better word, at one point, but it just wasn’t working out, so we kept our relationship at bay.”

Eren swallowed. “O-Oh. I see.”

The two looked over their menus in silence, and Rivaille ordered their choices. More like, Eren didn’t know what to get because the menu was some sort of French government secret to him, so Rivaille just ordered double of whatever he got. In French. Eren was turned on. Rivaille turned him off forcefully with a kick under the table.

And they waited.

“This is nice,” Eren declared, finally looking at ease for the first time since they arrived. Rivaille was glad.

“About time you thought so.”

“I wish we can do this everyday.” Eren said wistfully.

“You’re going to push me into the Great Depression,” Rivaille pointed out.

“No! Not this exactly,” Eren gestured to the table. “More like, I just want to be with you. Everyday.”

Rivaille stared at Eren. “And we can hang out everyday, do work, I’ll graduate and I’ll work at the hospital as part of your squad. On rainy days we can just sit in and watch Disney movies, and make fun of cliché movie scenes. On sunny days we can go out to the park and pet dogs. We can even adopt a dog if your landlord lets you. We can order Chinese and Mexican, and we’ll cry about getting fat together, and vow to work out the next day, but I probably won’t and you probably will because you’re that diligent. We can do this everyday and just repeat, and repeat…”

Eren couldn’t bring himself to finish. He looked like he was holding back tears again. Rivaille closed his eyes.

It hurt the both of them, really.

They knew that they had 5 days left together, after all.

“But we can’t.” Rivaille finished for him.

Eren looked as if he were going to protest, but stopped himself, because he knew it was true.

“Rivaille! It’s you!”

The two turned toward the source of the noise, both glad there was something to break the sudden ice. A short girl with red pigtails poking out from under her chef’s hat bounced out of the kitchen with her tall, pale-brown-haired friend chasing after her as she slammed into Rivaille and hugged him.

Eren looked peeved. So this was how Ymir felt when people doted on Christa.

“Oh my God, you made it! I thought, since you said you’d come back, you’d come back like immediately but you didn’t, it’s been months, Rivaille! I know this place is expensive but come on, man, you’re a doctor! All you do is Facebook us! So when you said you’d be here tonight I thought, hey, he’s probably joking, right Farlan? But how are you? You look paler than normal! Did something happen? And who’s this?” she gushed, looking over to Eren and squeezing his cheeks.

“Ahh, you’re adorable! I like you! My name’s Isabel Magnolia, and my friend here is Farlan Church! We’re, like, Rivaille’s BFFLs. What’s your name?”

Farlan peeled Isabel off the terrified Eren. She reminded him of a younger Hanji.

“His name’s Eren, and he’s my date.” Rivaille answered for him. Isabel gasped.

“Oooh, how scandalous!” Her voice dropped to a lower octave afterwards as realization dawned on her. “Then, that means…”

Rivaille nodded nonchalantly. “Yeah, we didn’t work out.”

“Just like Farlan predicted!” Isabel said. Farlan looked uncomfortable as they drew more and more attention towards themselves.

“Isabel, we gotta get back in the kitchen.” Farlan pointed out. Isabel looked upset.

“Aw, damn, and we just met up with Rivaille, too!” She smiled nonetheless. “Nice seeing you again, BFFL! Dessert’s on us. And seriously, we have got to hang out soon! Have a great time, you guys!” She bounced off just as quickly as she bounced in, Farlan chasing her once more tiredly.

“That was…” Eren started.

“Sorry. Those were the two friends I mentioned earlier, guess we did end up meeting them after all.” Rivaille squeezed the bridge of his nose. “She’s kind of hyperactive and Farlan’s the only one who can really steer her around.”

Eren shrugged, a bit flustered. “It’s cool! How do you guys know each other?”

Rivialle paused. “Childhood friends.”

Eren didn’t press on further. Rivaille’s childhood was a touchy subject, he knew. “Oh, that’s cool! Me and Armin are childhood friends.”

Rivaille quirked a brow. “Is that so? You and blonde Dora?”

Eren smiled at the nickname. “Yeah. Me, him, and Mikasa used to hang out all the time. We got into the same college as a stroke of luck. Well, not really for him, Armin’s always been a genius…”

Eren continued talking, happy that he had something to distract the pain of leaving with, and Rivaille zoned out, observing his face. He really was a good-looking kid, heaven knows why he was single. Then again, his personality was a bit out there, so maybe that repelled girls from him. Maybe it was the near-death experience, but for some reason, Eren looked even more gorgeous than he ever had. It might have been the hair or the suit, but Eren looked perfect in Rivaille’s eyes.

“…and once, Jean knocked a soccer ball into his face, and Mikasa got so pissed at him that she ignored him for a full month!” Eren laughed. Rivaille snickered.

“Jean? That kid who signed up for the internship here?” he asked.

“Yeah. He’s a horsedick. Don’t get too close to him, he probably has STDs.” Eren grimaced. Rivaille chuckled.

“Oh! The food’s here!” Eren rubbed his hands together. As soon as the server put down the food with a cheery “Enjoy!”, Eren dove into his plate of his Scottish Salmon, ignoring the rest of the plate until he finished the main course. Rivaille ate slowly, taking in the flavor of the exotic dish and wishing Eren did the same. But then again, he was still a kid, what did he know about restaurant manners?

“Save some room for the main dish,” Rivaille scolded. “There’s still more to come.”

“Yes, mother,” Eren said playfully.

Time passed quickly. Between courses, Eren and Rivaille held a solid conversation about people they liked, people they hated, people like Erwin, people like Hanji, Flappy Bird, League of Legends, Kim Kardashian, Justin Bieber, and how Canada probably wasn’t even real.

At one point, Eren asked if he could have wine.

Rivaille refused him.

Eren was sad.

“Dessert, compliments of Chef Magnolia and Chef Church,” the server announced in his thick French accent. “A Dark Chocolate Parfait for Mister Rivaille, and a Chocolate Mille-Feuille for his date.” He gave Eren a sly wink and Eren blushed for the hundredth time that day.

“This looks amazing,” Nonetheless, the desserts truly did look amazing, and Eren was amazed at the level of skill Rivaille’s friends had to manage such a nice plating.

“It tastes better than it looks,” Rivaille pointed out. Eren dove into dessert, as well. Rivaille prayed to the lesser gods Eren didn’t spill anything and mess up his suit, which, quite frankly, looked absolutely ravishing on Eren.

The dessert did taste good, and Eren found himself wanting more. He looked at Rivaille, who was full and couldn’t finish his parfait, and pleaded silently with his eyes for his half of the dessert. Rivaille groaned and pushed it to him. The parfait was gone in seconds.

The moment of truth crashed upon them when the server brought the check over.

Eren almost fainted.

Rivaille looked unfazed.

The number on that small slip of paper was almost unholy, and Eren had to balance himself with the table to keep from fainting. Rivaille didn’t think too much of it, and took out his credit card.

“I can’t let you pay,” Eren said, hands shaking as he pulled out his own wallet.

“You can and you will.” Rivaille said simply, slamming his card on the check first.

“That’s not even a real number,” Eren whined.

“You’re not even a real number,” Rivaille retorted.

Within a few minutes, the card was rung up, and the two were free to go.

“My compliments to the chefs,” Rivaille said to the server as he put his suit jacket back on. Eren didn’t know what to say, so he just pretended like he was fiddling with the buttons of his own suit jacket. He was still recovering from the blow from the check. The server smiled.

“I will relay that. Have a good evening, _monsieurs,_ ” he replied. Eren could have sworn there was an underlying tone in that statement, but chose not to dwell on it.

When they got back to the car, Eren collapsed into his seat. Rivaille put the key into the ignition and sped off back to their apartment.

“That was…probably the best night I’ve had in a while,” Eren finally commented after five minutes of food coma-induced silence. “Really. How did you look so calm when you saw that number? I swear I could hear Satan laughing when I saw the number.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“I’ve never seen more than 300 on a check before, and I eat with three of my family members!”

“The food was good. It was worth it.”

“Good? It was amazing! Your friends are extremely talented!”

“Mmhmm.”

Eren thought Rivaille was being quiet and didn’t want to bother him. He was probably fighting off sleep, as well. And a sleepy driver is equivalent to a dangerous driver.

He must have dozed off, because when he opened his eyes, they arrived in their apartment’s garage.

“Oh, we’re here,” Eren muttered to himself. Rivaille opened the door for him, and he got out. Just like what a boyfriend would do for a girlfriend. The two made their way over to the elevator.

And that was when Eren snapped internally.

If everything was as social media said it was, normally what happens after a date is…

Eren blushed. Oh God. Was he even prepared for this? Was he mentally ready? Was he physically ready? He hadn’t even thought of this happening. He assumed the date would have taken a turn for the worst, but it was surprisingly quite normal. So, if everything was as planned, then the thing that would happen right about then was…

Would it happen?

Rivaille looked tired, or brooding, or both, he wasn’t speaking to him and oh, lord, if something had gone wrong while he was asleep in the car…

Eren wasn’t ready. Or, maybe he was, he just didn’t think he was, because he’d never done it before. Well, no, he had, but they were flings, nothing more than attention-seeking actions that meant no more than fooling around.

But this was Rivaille.

And he honestly wanted to go all the way with him.

But what if that wasn’t where this was headed???

Eren pinched himself to keep from voicing his thoughts out loud.

The elevator was silent, and Eren couldn’t stand it. Had something gone wrong after all? Did he say something in his sleep that pissed Rivaille off?

“So…what now?” he asked as Rivaille stuck the key into the knob. Eren prepared himself for the worst.

He honestly really didn’t expect what happened next.

Rivaille opened the door, threw Eren in, slammed the door. Eren rubbed his back and was about to ask why, when Rivaille pinned Eren against the door, and slammed their lips together for a heated kiss.

Eren was taken aback, but closed his eyes and parted his lips slightly to let Rivaille gain access. He tasted slightly of the chocolate parfait and it was hot, so hot. Eren made a noise of submission, and he could almost feel Rivaille grin into the kiss.

“Now,” Rivaille said between small smooches and pecks. “You’re going to,” He made his way down Eren’s neck. “Fuck me so hard,” He came back up to Eren’s lips and absolutely devoured him. “That I won’t be able to walk straight tomorrow.”

He looked up lustfully at Eren. “That I won’t be able to go to work tomorrow.”

Eren had no objections.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhhhhhhhhhhh rolls on floor the smut chapter is next guys be prepared and hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh  
> crais 4ever this is for you guys i love you
> 
> ps the shitty french is from google translate  
> and i love isabel and farlan from choice with no regrets. thought it b cool to put them in uwu


	19. Desire

They hadn’t been in the apartment for more than ten seconds as Rivaille basically threw Eren on the couch and proceeded to climb on top of him.

“W-wait-“ Eren stammered as Rivaille struggled with taking off both their ties at the same time. He glared down at the flustered boy with sexual repression obvious in his eyes.

“What?” His voice had a strained bite to it and Eren realized Rivaille had been holding back as long as he could, and he’d finally snapped. He gulped.

“I, I just,” Eren blushed and turned away, absentmindedly trying to help Rivaille with the ties. “I mean, I don’t know, isn’t this going a bit too fast?”

If looks could kill, Eren would be dead by now.

“No. You can’t honestly be saying something like that after you teased me all night with that fucking sexyass suit of yours and your fucking adorable antics back at the restaurant,” Rivaille deadpanned, successfully taking off both their ties and discarding them somewhere around the room.

“I didn’t know I was teasing you! What-“ Eren’s protests were muffled yet again by Rivaille’s lips on his, but this time he was fully aware and fully willing to cooperate.

“And you can’t possibly make me wait,” Rivaille muttered as he nipped Eren in the back of his ear, earning a shudder. “Because all my self-control was thrown out the window when you fell asleep in the fucking car.”

Eren flushed bright red as he vaguely remembered the silence during the drive back home. That must have been Rivaille restraining himself so that he wouldn’t take Eren by surprise in the car, where it was cramped and far too small for him to do what he wanted.

“I would have taken you right then and there if it weren’t for the better part of me telling me to wait, and I’ve had enough, to be honest.” Rivaille remarked, pulling Eren up into a sloppy yet calculated make out as he proceeded to just fuck the whole system of getting their clothes off correctly and just ripped his shirt off himself, getting to work on Eren’s own shirt. Eren bit back several potentially delicious moans, determined to try and retain some dignity before losing his mind from the way Rivaille was handling him.

God, Rivaille’s upper body was just a fucking work of art. Eren never knew exactly how fit Rivaille was, but he was knowing it now. Though he had a slim frame, Rivaille’s surprisingly broad shoulders only accentuated the rippling muscles in his arms and chest, and his abs told a story of their own. How the hell did a doctor have time for the gym? Even so, Eren thanked the higher powers for a lovely view he’d only seen in magazines at the gym.

He kind of made him feel insecure. Eren thought back to the excruciating days of working out with Jean back in California in a competitive attempt impress some chick who turned out to be a total bitch towards both of them. Jean stopped working out afterwards, but Eren grew fond of the gym and made it a habit to go at least twice a week. As a result, he had a pretty decent body, but it wilted in contrast to Rivaille’s body structure. He wondered if Hanji had ever seen Rivaille’s bare chest; that alone should have her distracted for at least a week. But then again, Eren wouldn’t have appreciated that.

“I can tell you’re holding back, you know,” Rivaille commented crossly, snapping Eren out of his stupor. “Normally you’re all talk, don’t disappoint me now.”

Eren whimpered, taken out of his daydream. He honest to god didn’t know what to do at this point. He’d always taken the lead with what little girls he’d been with. He was not used to being the bottom at all. The man on top of him, on the other hand, seemed to know exactly what he was doing.

Rivaille made his way down to Eren’s chest, admiring the toned collarbones and outlines of the muscles that made up Eren, admiring Eren himself. He knew the kid was checking him out earlier. Who wouldn’t? It had taken him years to maintain that kind of physique, he would be upset if it weren’t noticed and appreciated.

“Let me hear you,” Rivaille demanded. Eren shook his head, clearly embarrassed.

“Alright, then I guess I’ll just have to force you,” Rivaille declared. His hand wandered down to Eren’s quite evident erection, lightly massaging the area and feeling Eren’s hips buck up. He earned himself a delicious moan at that.

“There it is,” Rivaille said hoarsely, kissing Eren lightly on the corner of his mouth as a reward and gently squeezing his area at repetitive intervals. Eren could have sworn he saw a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips, and felt blood rushing south at the positively smoldering look on Rivaille’s face. Eren’s moans came out high and shrill, laced with lust and embarrassment. He threw his palms onto his face to prevent Rivaille from seeing his flustered expression.

Rivaille stopped his motions. Eren peeked from a hole between his fingers, noticeably disappointed and surprised.

“R-Rivaille,” Eren whined. Rivaille was getting up from the sofa, and Eren was scared Rivaille had grown bored of him already.

“Where are you going?” He exclaimed, sounding a little too desperate. Rivaille turned slightly, bemused by Eren’s reaction.

“If you want sex, you damn better believe we’re doing it properly.” Rivaille threw a ‘come-hither’ sort of look behind his shoulder casually, prompting Eren to scramble off the couch and follow Rivaille into his bedroom obediently.

Eren closed the door behind them, shyly looking to an unabashed Rivaille taking off what little articles of clothing he had left on. He raised an eyebrow at Eren.

“Strip,” he ordered, like it was something expected to be done anyway. Eren had no trouble obliging. He clumsily took off his pants and by the time he got to his socks, Rivaille had already pushed him onto the bed and climbed on his lap once more. He looked horny as fuck and Eren had an idea as to why.

And in a split moment, Eren bucked his hips and the two lost themselves.

Eren was pretty liberal with the lewd noises he was making at this point. But he noticed Rivaille was being hypocritical and holding back his own moans, and Eren didn’t like that. Placing his hands on Rivaille’s hips, Eren’s fingers wandered to Rivaille’s entrance and gently massaged his ass while subtly inching closer to his destination with every wave.

He was proud to see Rivaille was as hard as he was. However, Rivaille was bent on keeping the most dignity he could by biting down on his lips to prevent any noise from coming out. Eren really didn’t like that; he was overcome by a sudden, animalistic urge to hear Rivaille scream, moan, cry, and absolutely sob his name.

So in order to achieve his goals, Eren took one hand off Rivaille’s (perfect) ass and in between themselves, taking initiative and stroking Rivaille’s length, further exciting both parties in the process. Eren got what he wanted, all right, and maybe a bit more; he supposed Rivaille lost himself at some point and completely forgot to mute himself. Who knew someone like him could make such inappropriate noises? Eren sure didn’t. This was going down in history.

“E-Enough,” Rivaille whined. And yes, he did whine, and Eren relished every second of it.

“What?” Eren asked a bit too innocently, much to the ire of Rivaille.

“You know damn well you’re just teasing me right now,” Rivaille growled, forcibly tearing himself away from Eren in one smooth motion. Eren found that a bit difficult to swallow. Was he going too slow? This was basically his first time with a man, he didn’t know what males wanted, in all honesty.

“What do you mean- oh.” Rivaille had rummaged through a drawer quickly to produce a bottle of lube, and Eren gulped. He felt like he was going slowly on purpose, to stall time, so he wouldn’t have to do this part- again, because he had no idea how to do so.

“Stop looking so fucking clueless,” Rivaille rolled his eyes as he uncapped the lube, pouring a liberal amount of it onto his fingers and reaching backwards. “Like I’d let an inexperienced brat like you prepare me.”

Eren visibly relaxed. Looks like he didn’t have to do the most difficult part, and on top of that, he could watch Rivaille get flustered over fingering himself, and a sight to behold it was. He was tearing up as his fingers passed the threshold, stretching himself slowly but surely.

“Does it hurt?” Eren pressed his palm against Rivaille’s cheek, inclining himself so he could look him straight in the eyes. Rivaille glared.

“No, it feels like fucking peaches and roses down there. Feels just like heaven, Eren. Of course it hurts, God.”

Eren winced, but he was vaguely aware of the pain that must have been inflicted upon Rivaille, and he didn’t want to argue in fear of Rivaille just calling this entire thing off. Instead, he kept staring into his eyes, palm now going to his own neglected member.

“Well, just so you know, you look beautiful,” Eren commented off-handedly. What could he say? It was the truth after all.

“Shut up,” Rivaille muttered, suddenly gasping sharply when he brushed past the part where it felt good. That brought an entire surge of pleasure to Eren, who wasn’t expecting such a strong reaction at all.

He couldn’t take anymore of Rivaille.

Eren reached behind him and tugged his hand away from his stretching, positive he was ready. Rivaille gave a grunt of protest as he realized what Eren was trying to do.

“Hold on,” he said, reaching into the drawer once more to pull out a condom.

“Aw, what?”

“It’s a condom, Eren. Have you ever heard of it?”

“I mean, of course, but I assumed…”

“Oh, like I’d actually let you bareback me. I’m a doctor, I know the hazards.”

Eren blushed as Rivaille quickly unwrapped the condom and rolled it on him, slicking it with his already slippery fingers. When he deemed it was ready, he moved up and positioned himself so that he was directly above Eren’s erection.

Eren groaned as he felt himself going inside of Rivaille, at an excruciatingly slow pace. He attempted to grab Rivaille’s hips down and just thrust into him, but he knew he’d probably get stabbed or something for doing that, so he controlled himself.

It was _warm._ It felt pleasant, and oddly nice as he stretched out Rivaille’s walls. He supposed that Rivaille’s fingers were only a prelude to something much thicker, because Rivaille still looked like he wasn’t very comfortable. Maybe he shouldn’t have rushed the stretching process. He felt terrible, because Rivaille was probably putting Eren’s needs first, knowing full well how much it would hurt. Eren reached up and kissed him once, twice, trying to stop the small tears that formed from the pain, because he didn’t know what else he could do. He kissed him soothingly as Rivaille lowered himself completely with a soft moan.

“It’s all in,” Rivaille said softly. His voice sounded hoarse. Eren nodded. He took this as his cue to place his hands on either side of Rivaille’s hips, and to assist him in going up slowly before going down once more.

Both men cried out in pure bliss at the raw contact. It soon became a repetitive motion, as Eren bucked his hips continuously and Rivaille bounced along, almost helpless against Eren’s teenage libido. He thought he could keep up, but he was dead wrong; Eren was overflowing with energy, way more than Rivaille could follow up with.

Eren moaned as he bounced Rivailled up and down on his cock. He’d never felt this great before. He hoped he wouldn’t get too addicted to this feeling.

“Fuck, God, you feel amazing, Rivaille.” Eren commented, lost in an abyss of pleasure.

“Ah, E-Eren,” Rivaille groaned, voice breaking from the overwhelming sensations.

“Yeah?” Eren sounded equally broken, totally unfocused and doing all the work at this point. He was falling deeper into darkness, deeper into Rivaille, deeper into losing himself completely.

“Eren,” Rivaille leaned forward to wind his arms around Eren’s neck, pulling the two closer. That snapped Eren out of his sex-driven stupor. Was Rivaille sick? Was he okay?

“What are you-”

“I don’t want you to leave,” Rivaille confessed. Eren paused briefly to comprehend what he had just said. So he wasn’t sick.

“What’s that?”

“Don’t leave.” Rivaille’s voice was muffled against Eren’s shoulder, but still coherent nonetheless. If it weren’t for the sex, Eren could have sworn Rivaille sounded like he was about to genuinely cry. That hurt him. It hurt him hard. Rivaille was invincible. To see a man like him about to break down because of a dumb brat like himself, Eren felt extremely guilty and saddened. He didn’t want to be the cause of Rivaille’s sadness, ever.  

“I’m right here, Rivaille,” Eren let go of Rivaille’s hips, still bucking, and wrapping his arms around his body. He whispered soothing words into Rivaille’s ear, having no idea whether they would help or not but hoping they would.

“Don’t leave me,” Rivaille gasped as Eren hit his prostate. “Please,”

Eren focused on getting himself to hit that spot again to give Rivaille some pleasure. He wasn’t that far from climaxing and he didn’t want to climax alone.

“I won’t,” Eren promised. He found it cute how Rivaille was more honest in bed than in other situations, which was unexpected. He completely lost his composure during sex. He was glad that it at least calmed Rivaille down, because he resumed letting out noises that sounded like music to Eren. A perverted symphony. A sexual arrangement. Rivaille wanted the D and he was getting it good.

“Haa, jesus, Eren-nn,” By the sounds of it, it seemed like Rivaille was getting close, too. Which was good, because Eren was seconds away from just unraveling.

“Rivaille, ah, shit, Rivaille, I-I’m gonna come, I’m gonna-” Eren didn’t finish his sentence as he climaxed, moaning from the orgasm that convulsed throughout his body. He saw stars, and he was sure Rivaille felt the exact same when he climaxed as well, fluids covering their stomachs from the release.

Eren immediately fell back into the bed, taking Rivaille with him, gasping hard. Rivaille seemed to be having the same predicament, lack of air. Eren lifted Rivaille’s chin slightly, and was sated when the man reached in for a slight kiss. Rivaille fell back and rested his face against Eren’s chest, losing consciousness.

“Man, I,” Eren tried to speak in out-of-breath intervals. “I think I love you, Rivaille,”

“Hnn.” Rivaille didn’t respond. He was older, after all, he was probably tired. Eren thought he himself had enough energy to go another round, but he put Rivaille first.

“You’re amazing,” he mumbled. Never mind, energy was running low. His eyes felt heavy with sleep. “You’re amazing, Rivaille.”

“Nn,” Rivaille was half-asleep on Eren’s chest. “Love you too, probably,”

Eren looked at him with a melancholic expression on his face. He stroked Rivaille’s sweaty, raven hair as the man drifted off to sleep.

And then he realized.

Staying would only hurt Rivaille more.

‘Don’t leave me, please.’

Rivaille’s lonely words echoed in Eren’s mind.

He didn’t want Rivaille to cry because of him ever again.

Eren knew what he had to do.

* * *

When Rivaille woke up the next morning, he found that the bed was empty, he wasn’t laying on a comfortable chest anymore, and he had been tucked under the covers.

To put it simply, Eren was gone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jeeeeeeeeeeeesus guys i am so sorry for the long hiatus  
> this chapter was hell to write ahh  
> esp considering it was my first real smut hhhh how do u ppl do this for a living teach me senseid  
> im so sorry for the long wait but hey enjoy some sappy smut ;v;


	20. 17 Days

“Is Doctor Rivaille alright?” A worried Petra inquired to Auruo as they observed their boss silently facedown on his desk, head buried between his arms.

It had been 17 days since Eren left and Rivaille had tried everything. He asked Hanji, he asked his team, he even managed to find Eren’s friends and ask them what happened but it was a huge shock to them as well and he got out of there before he could become a target of their confusion. All that running around, plus a sudden influx of patients in the ER, left Rivaille drained, tired, hurt, and entirely empty, to the point where Erwin forced him to take a break due to his inattentiveness. His reputation was going down the drain, mistakes were being made left and right, and rumours were spreading throughout the hospital that he was slipping, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He was at an all-time low, and felt so down that Erwin even recommended taking some pills to up his mood a bit.

He honestly couldn’t imagine why Eren left. He thought they’d had an understanding between them. He thought Eren knew that he realized he was hopelessly falling for the boy, and fast. He thought Eren realized how ridiculous he was being. He thought Eren would fight for his freedom. He thought that mind-blowing sex wasn’t just out of lust, it meant something more.

He trusted Eren.

But that trust was broken the morning he got up and couldn’t find Eren anywhere.

He didn’t touch anything. Not his phone, his social networking sites, not even his pager at times until someone physically forced him out of his office to alert him of an emergency situation. He didn’t even eat food until Hanji and Petra insisted he needed sustenance, and force-fed him food from the hospital cafeteria. He was doing a shit job as a doctor, and an even shittier job as a surgeon. And he was a failure at being a human being. Deep down, he knew he was being a complete coward and a selfish bitch, letting people _die_ because he was depressed over some kid leaving him for 17 days and counting, but he just couldn’t care anymore. He was done. He let it happen again. He let himself get hurt again, get left in the dust again, get kicked to the curb again. He thought he learned his lesson but no, clearly he didn’t. So when he was supposed to be performing surgeries and helping patients out, he was put on unconditional leave until he snapped back to his senses, which may as well have been never. He locked himself in his office and barely came out.

Even through all that, however, Rivaille couldn’t work up the energy to get angry at the boy. No matter how hard he tried to place blame upon Eren for leaving, he just couldn’t. No matter how much he tried to work up the energy to get mad, he just couldn’t bring himself to hate Eren.

Why did he leave though? And with no notice or telling anybody, too?

Rivaille picked his head up. He wasn’t thinking logically at all these past few days. He figured it was time to do so. His head was in the clouds and his intelligence level had dropped to 0 as he realized how irrationally he was thinking out of desperation and confusion. Eren wasn’t stupid. He had to have a legitimate reason for leaving. It wasn’t like he didn’t like Rivaille, because Rivaille was 101% sure the boy was head over heels for him, and the signs said it all. It wasn’t like he left because he hated Rivaille, or despised him. He wasn’t on the best terms with his father after that news, and he probably didn’t want to see Mikasa’s face much either. Which left only a few choices.

Eren left on his own accord to settle things, or he actually felt threatened by the fire.

No, the latter couldn’t have been true. Eren was tough. A fire wasn’t enough to break him…but what if it was?

Rivaille decided not to ponder too much on the “what if’s” and turned to focusing on the “what can be done’s”. He had to stop being such a pussy about this situation and actually start thinking of what to do.

He turned his head to his door, where he saw Petra and Auruo jerk in the realization he was conscious, and watched them scurry away. Really, if Auruo was a bit more sincere, maybe Petra could see that he had the illest crush on her and maybe even consider him as a potential lover.

God, he was turning mushy.

In all his cynicism, though, at least before Eren came along, he realized he never really paid much attention to his team’s own personal love lives. He knew Erd had a devoted, loving, long-time girlfriend he was planning to propose to soon, and he always assumed Gunther was just not about that life or something until he walked past him and a young girl in the streets a few weeks ago. And he knew Auruo had the longest crush on Petra ever, but Petra seemed to be uninterested mostly because Auruo acted like a total fool whenever she was around. Rivaille knew Petra had some sort of degree of affection towards him, and that was why Auruo tried imitating his looks and everything, but he supposed Petra never noticed. She was a nice girl, just not Rivaille’s type, and he believed that if he showed he wasn’t interested enough times, she’d realize Auruo was always there for her or something.

He needed some air.

As he closed the door to his office, he looked up to the bustling scene of the hospital and started to realize just how impassive he was toward everyone and everything in the hospital. When he took the time to actually notice, he could see something everyone had in common as they waited for news or for whatever they were waiting for, and that was love. There weren’t many couples in the vicinity, but there was family, there were friends, there were strangers, all bonding over something as cruel as love. Not like sex love, or the stupid high school cliché love, but love for human beings. Something he had pushed away into the back of his mind for the longest time. Well, in retrospect, he’d been trained to do that, but he supposed that was the excuse he’d made for a long time. He couldn’t harbor any personal feelings toward anything, because in the end, a patient is a patient and a coworker is a coworker. That was what earned him his title and his reputation. And it was also because of the fact that the one time he told himself things would be different, it ended up a complete wreck, so after that he simply sealed himself back in and tried not to care. In fact, just until Eren came, he was finally getting used to being more secluded and secure. Finally getting used to blocking these useless emotions out of the way. But then Eren just had to fucking come into his life.

That stupid, cheeky, know-it-all, dumbass brought back to Rivaille all the emotions that he thought he hid away for so long. He always thought of them as bothersome, but Eren taught him out to feel again without even trying. Ugh. He was feeling. Gross.

Erwin had just left a bad taste in his mouth. So after that whole incident, Rivaille decided to not overreact or anything, he simply decided to stop trying. After all, love was romanticized and hyped up to the point where it was ridiculous.

But Eren made him want to try again.

He knew the stupid kid had feelings for him, and he knew how much he hurt him when he rejected him out of his own self-pity. But at the time, the decision felt right. It clearly wasn’t. You never really know what you had until it’s gone.

He was in the mood for something sickeningly sweet. He hated sweet things with a passion. He was more of the spicy-bitter kind of person. Sweet things gave him a stomachache. But Eren got him back into the habit of eating shit like ice cream as they talked about recent celebrity scandals, or chocolate milk on mornings they were hung over and couldn’t function like human beings. Which was bad for his diet, sure, but it was Eren.

Good thing a Starbucks was nearby.

He made his way into the place, where a few people eyed his doctor’s coat but didn’t’ say anything about it. Most of the people there seemed to be cramming for tests, something Eren did a lot. The line was short, so when he finally got to the barista, he asked for a caramel Frappuccino, the only sweet Starbucks drink he would ever tolerate, and also Eren’s favorite. Whenever they went to Starbucks for a small break, they’d always laugh about how the baristas couldn’t spell, and wondered out loud if they did it on purpose. Then they’d receive their cups and laugh some more like a couple of high school students out on a date.

The frap was made fairly quickly, and he was just about to settle at a window seat when he felt his phone ring in his pocket, and groaned. He was reminiscing about his times with Eren, he couldn’t be bothered with something at the moment. If it were urgent, they’d page him. He checked the screen just to be sure it wasn’t Eren, though. Sure enough, it was Hanji.

“What?” Rivaille barked.

“Touchy. Just when I have good news too!” he could hear Hanji’s pout.

“What is it, I’ll be over-“

“NO! No, it’s fine, you’re at Starbucks, right? I’ve been testing out this new GPS feature to monitor a few things and it actually works, haha!”

“That’s really creepy, could you sto-“

“I’ll be over in a couple minutes. You won’t believe what just happened!”

Rivaille groaned so she could hear, and hung up. Probably something about Sonny and Bean again. But in the wake of his call, he noticed something he hadn’t noticed before.

It was the morning after the sex, and someone had taken a picture of him sleeping.

Eren had taken a picture of himself sleeping in his bed and made it his wallpaper.

And he hadn’t noticed because he was too busy wallowing in self-pity and depression.

Slowly, he began to come back to his senses. How much had he missed in the two weeks or so he was out? He checked his Facebook, responded to all the worried messages from his coworkers who had subsequently texted him the same contents asking if he was okay. He checked snapchat, and he was bombarded with stupid pictures from Hanji that were directed towards making him feel better. He checked his emails, and found the usual spam to be welcoming. At least he wasn’t forgotten. He was honestly lucky to have such people around him, people who cared.

A few minutes after he replied to everyone who messaged him, he saw Hanji bouncing toward him with a stack of papers in her hand a block away from Starbucks, and rolled his eyes as he sipped his super sweet drink. She was probably going to tell him about the new discovery or whatever that he honestly couldn’t care less about, but had to listen to anyway because he figured out a method to act like he was listening a long time ago.

She skipped into the store, happy, earning looks of curiosity when she belted Rivaille’s name at the top of her lungs upon seeing him.

“Rivaille! You’re alive! And out of the office! What a nice change.” She sang.

“So what’s the progress on Sonny and Bean,” Rivaille groaned when Hanji quickly pulled out the chair across from his window seat, grimacing because he knew Hanji was worried about him and was amongst the first ones to spam him with “feel better” messages, so he felt indebted to her in a way.

Hanji’s mouth opened halfway, puzzled.

Rivaille sighed. “Has there been any progress, or did they finally kick the can?”

Hanji shook her head, realizing Rivaille was saying something completely far from what she was about to tell him.

“Oh, no, no, no. This isn’t about that. It’s about you!” She slipped him a piece of paper.

Rivaille glanced at the paper, a series of messily scrawled digits. He peered at Hanji, who smiled widely, like a feral cat expecting a treat.

“What, is this your mug shot number? I knew this day was coming. Did you finally get arrested? You need me to bail you out?” Rivaille rolled his eyes, much to Hanji’s chagrin.

“NO! Alright, so the greatest thing happened, something great for you, if you will let me explain.” She clipped, and Rivaille straightened up. If she thought it was worth Rivaille’s time truthfully, then it had to be something good. Hanji pointed at the sheet of paper.

“It’s Eren’s new number while he’s away. Something about his phone not working out of state so he has a temporary one. He called the hospital earlier and I’ve gotta say, he was lucky Erwin put me on receptionist duty for a few hours as punishment for shaving off half his brow by accident, hoo boy, that’s the last time he lets me anywhere near his hair. Or his brow ridge. Oopsies! So anyway! Yeah, Eren called, Rivaille. He didn’t just disappear. Isn’t this great? You can stop worrying now.”

It took Rivaille a few moments to register what Hanji just did. Eren called the hospital. He was with his father and Mikasa, and more than that, he was okay. He was safe. Which meant now he could call back this number and subsequently kick his ass from across the country.

He stood up immediately from his seat, chair scraping against the floor. He had to get to his office, where he could make out-of-state calls without being billed heavily for it. He needed to hear Eren’s voice. He needed to make sure the kid was okay, and if he was, why the hell he hadn’t said anything before.

“I owe you one, Han,” Rivaille said before he slammed the door to the world, meaning every single word he just said. Hanji simply nodded, knowing she did good for once. 

X

As soon as he got to the phone at his desk, he punched in the digits as fast as he could, and held the receiver up to his ear impatiently as the dial tone rang and rang. When no one picked up, Rivaille tried again.

Damn it.

_Ring._

_Ring._

_Ring._

Was this the right number?

_Ring._

_Ring._

_Ring._

Hanji wasn’t playing him, was she?

_Ring._

_Ring._

_Ring._

“Why aren’t you picking up, you son of a bitch,” Rivaille muttered to himself, as he put the receiver down again to call once more.

He bit his lip, about to slam the receiver down and kick something in the vicinity out of frustration when the other line clicked and a groggy but clear voice answered,

“ _Hello?_ ”

Rivaille stopped breathing. Out of shock, he slammed the receiver down before realizing what he had just done and muttering a few obscenities before calling again once more.

_Please pick up, please pick up-_

_“Um, hello?”_

He sounded tired, and a bit confused from the amount of calls he just received, but there was no doubting it. It was Eren.

Rivaille didn’t know what to say, and that was kind of a huge deal for such an eloquent person like himself. Eren was the only person who could truly cause him to be at a loss for words like this.

Fearing Eren would hang up, Rivaille spoke up quickly, saying the very first words that came to mind:

“Where are you?”

His words came a bit broken and ragged, but it was what truly came to his mind as soon as he heard Eren’s voice. Along with, “You fuck”, “You’re such a shit”, “I’m gonna beat the living hell out of you”, and “Are you okay?”.

The other end went silent, and Rivaille started worrying if Eren thought he was a crazy stalker or something.

“ _Uh…excuse me, do you have the wrong number?_ ” He asked hesitantly. Rivaille almost facepalmed.

“It’s me! It’s me, you idiot.” Rivaille answered quickly, and an audible, satisfying gasp was heard from Eren’s side.

“ _R-Rivaille?_ ” he asked in disbelief. Rivaille almost smiled, but remembered he was still slightly pissed.

“No, this is the president of the United States, calling to inform you that you’re a huge fuck for leaving me in the dark like that for an entire 17 days. Do you enjoy seeing me worry, Jaegar?” Rivaille snapped, letting every little bit of bitterness accumulated from the last three days bleed through his tone. Granted, it had only been seventeen days, and it seemed kind of silly he was so worried and depressed for those two weeks and 3 days, but he thought it was a huge deal at that moment. But now it just seemed stupid he was so down. Then again, in the moment, he was completely justified; who knew if Eren would ever contact him ever again?

Eren laughed nervously, and Rivaille finally let himself smile.

" _It's you, Rivaille. Hey._ " Eren sighed.

“I guess you’re okay, for now at least. What matters is, are you well?” he asked. Eren made a humming noise.

“ _Well yeah, I mean it’s been a while since I came back to California, and everything’s the same as ever. By the way I don’t have such a long time to talk, Mikasa’s making dinner._ ” Eren said.

“What, so you couldn’t have contacted me earlier?” Rivaille asked.

“ _Huh?_ ”

“It took you 17 days to figure out that you could call the hospital, you Neanderthal?”

“ _I didn’t have the time or the means! I would have if I were a bit more settled down. Funny story, my phone actually dropped out of my pocket the day I landed in Cali so it broke completely and I lost all my contacts. Then I had the genius idea to the call hospital, since its number is on the website. I would have Facebooked you, but you blocked me for not cleaning up after myself that one time, remember?”_

Rivaille let out a sigh of relief. At least he wasn’t being ignored, and Eren did have a legitimate alibi as to his sudden disappearance and lack of communication.

“But, um…what…what was that all about,” Rivaille asked, still partly confused as to what was going on.

“ _What was what all about_?” Eren asked for clarification.

“Your dad, what, why did he want you back so suddenly? Is something the matter?”

“ _I honestly don’t know_ ,” Eren sighed, with a hint of annoyance. “ _I haven’t had a chance to ask him, because he’s so busy with work, and the only thing he wants to do when he comes home for like the 15 minutes he does every night is eat and go back to work. Repeat and repeat and repeat._ ”

“Have you tried talking to him?” Rivaille demanded, a bit harsher than he needed to.

“ _I tried bringing it up at the dinner table, but as always, and verbatim, ‘I’m too busy right now, Eren, talk to me later._ ’” Eren responded, a bit wary of Rivaille’s mood.

“This is complete bullshit. Had me so goddamn worried.” Rivaille muttered. Eren made a noise of agreement.

 _“…I made you worry?_ ” he asked after a short pause. Eren Jaegar, the Olympic medalist for reading moods. It only irked Rivaille further.

“Shut the fuck up, you little shit, you disappeared on me for 17 days without so much as a phone call, text, or an email, and you didn’t think to contact anyone around me either. Do you have any idea how worried I was? Wouldn’t you be worried, too? You’re a total airhead, Eren. I thought I did something wrong, you dumbass.” Rivaille let out all the frustration out he’d had pent up the past few days, and felt so airy when he managed to say it all without crying or anything.

“ _Rivaille….you know that I’d never do anything to hurt you on purpose_ ,” Eren said with such conviction that Rivaille couldn’t help but believe him.

“Fuck, I know, it’s just, I thought we established something and you disappearing on me didn’t help me feel any more secure about us than I was already,” Rivaille said. There was another long silence.

“ _I’m sorry, Rivaille. I know it doesn’t mean much, but I mean what I said, and I like you a lot. That hasn’t changed at all. And it never really will. So…just, I don’t know, hang in there. Just until I come back. Becausee I’m definitely going to go back as soon as this is over._ ”

“When will you come ho-come back?” Rivaille asked, correcting himself. This wasn’t Eren’s home.

“ _I…don’t know,_ ” Eren replied. “ _I won’t know unless I talk to my dad. And my dad doesn’t take me seriously, no one really does. So I think he’s going to ignore me for as much as possible._ ”

“Well, he can’t ignore you forever.” Rivaille concluded.

“ _He needs to take me seriously._ ”

“He needs to take _someone_ seriously.”

" _He never talks to me, though. How is he gonna take me seriously if he doesn't have the time to try?_ "

"He'll talk."

“ _I don’t know, he pretty much did exactly the opposite of that for the first 18 years of my life. Y’know, when I was like 10 years old, he told me there was a huge thing in the basement of our old house that he’d show me when he got home from surgery? But there was a huge fire and our house got completely destroyed, and he never really told me what was in the basement of our old house. He managed to avoid that top-_ “

“Eren.”

“ _Yeah?_ ”

“Shut up.”

“ _Wha- hey-!_ ”

“Eren Jaegar, I am hereby unblocking you on Facebook and adding you back on whatever else social media I’ve blocked you on. Message me your address, because I expect to see you at the airport in three days.”


End file.
